PositiveNewsCorner

Based on inputs by Shahid Kazi and Paridhi Sharma

Bogibeel  bridge, near the city of Dibrugarh, is India’s longest rail-road bridge and is built over the river Brahmaputra.  With the opening of the bridge, the rail journey from Dibrugarh to the Arunachal Pradesh capital Itanagar has been cut by 750 kilometres, this in turn has reduced time travelling from Assam to Arunachal Pradesh to just about 4 hours. The travel time between Delhi – Diburgarh is now just 3 hours.

The bridge will also boost defense along borders shared with China. The bridge will enable the military to speed up the dispatch of forces to neighboring Arunachal Pradesh in case there is tension along the Indo China border.

The bridge has been designed to bear the weight of India’s heaviest 60 tonne battle tanks,  and is big enough for the fighter jets can land on it. The bridge can withstand tremors up to 7 and beyond. It falls in seismic zone-V which is known to be the most vulnerable to earthquakes with magnitudes in excess of seven on the Richter scale.

It is based on the design of Oresund bridge that connects Sweden and Finland across the Oresand strait.

The bridge was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi .  A cavalcade was driven along the 4.9 kilometre (three mile) long Bogibeel bridge to inaugurate the project in Assam state.

The design of Bogibeel bridge has 39 spans of 125 m and a superstructure of composite welded steel truss and reinforced concrete. It is designed to carry a double line 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in) broad gauge railway on the lower deck and a 2-lane road on the upper deck. It is the longest combined rail and road bridge in India and second longest bridge in Assam over the river Brahmaputra after Bhupen Hazarika Setu which is a road bridge of length 9.15 k