Bringing the people of two northeastern States – Assam and Meghalaya – more closer, the construction work of India’s longest river bridge over river Brahmaputra, is likely to be started soon as the Dhubri district administration has begun the process of land acquisition for construction of roads to facilitate free flow of traffic.
The Dhubri-Phulbari bridge will be about 20 km long.
The bridge will link Dhubri town in Assam, located in the north bank of river Brahmaputra, to Phulbari, a small township, partly in Assam (South Salmara –Mankachar district) and mostly in West Garo Hills district of Meghalaya.
The international border with Bangladesh is located about 11 km away from Dhubri. It is expected that the bridge will cut a travel from over four to five hours of tough and pathetic journey on boats to just an hour.
The 20 km bridge will be an important segment of the NH 127 B crossing the river Brahmaputra.
Currently, small mechanised boats are being used to transport people and light freights across the Brahmaputra in this section.
NH 127B in a National Highway stretching about 371 km starting from Srirampur in Assam and terminating at Nongstoin in Meghalaya. The section crossing the Brahmaputra river is a missing link of the route.
The four-lane bridge, estimated to be constructed at a cost over Rs 4000 crore, is targeted to be completed by 2026-27.
While talking to Northeast Now, HP Rajkumar, Sub-Divisional Officer (Sadar), Dhubri said that the survey work of land accusation has already been completed except in a 2 km stretch and the district administration has also issued Government notification.
“The dispute in the 2 km stretch is because there is a mixture of Khass land and Patta land in that area and the entire work of land acquisition is going as per Assam Right to Fair Compensation Act,” the SDO said.
It may be mentioned that the Japanese funding agency, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), has approved a loan up to 25.483 billion Yen for the construction of this bridge under phase no 3 of North East Road Network Connectivity Improvement Project while the National Highways and Industrial Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL) is looking after the entire work.