Modi to inaugurate India's longest railroad bridge on December 25
PM Narendra Modi is set to inaugurate the Bogibeel Bridge, India's longest railroad bridge, in Assam this month. The 4.94km-long bridge will be inaugurated on December 25 (Atal Bihari Vajpayee's birth anniversary), which is also marked as Good Governance Day by the government. It connects the northern and southern banks of the Brahmaputra, falling in the eastern part of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.
Bogibeel Bridge construction started under Vajpayee's reign
While former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda had laid the foundation stone for the Bogibeel Bridge in January 1997, the work started only in April 2002, when former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee inaugurated the construction. It is the second longest bridge in Asia.
First freight train ran on the bridge on December 3
The first freight train ran on the bridge on December 3. Bogibeel is part of infrastructure projects planned by India to improve logistics along the border in Arunachal Pradesh. This includes the construction of a trans-Arunachal highway on the north bank of the Brahmaputra, new road and rail links over the mighty river and its major tributaries such as Dibang, Lohit, Subansiri, and Kameng.