A section of the crowd that gathered at Kareng Chapori in Dhemaji district to listen to the PM, Narendra Modi after inauguration of Bogibeel Bridge on Tuesday.

A long-cherished dream of the people of Dibrugarh and Dhemaji districts in Assam was fulfilled on Tuesday with the  inauguration of  Bogibeel Bridge, the longest rail-cum-road bridge in the country, by the Prime minister Narendra Modi.

Spanning 4.94 km the bridge has raised hopes for faster  economic development of the surrounding  region where it has ended an age-old  communication bottleneck.

It’s a historic day for the people of Dibrugarh and Dhemaji districts  because  people from both the banks of the river have faced lots of problems while crossing the  river through often erratic ferry service.  Now the people can easily cross over the bridge without losing much time.

“We are happy that after so many years of struggle, we have finally got a bridge over the Brahmaputra. It’s a historic day for us. We have to depend on ferry services and during the monsoon we have to face lots of problem because the ferry services remain disrupted but now we can easily cross the Brahmaputra over the bridge,” said Mina Pegu, a resident of Dhemaji.

The people had to wait for a longtime to listen PM Narendra Modi’s speech after the PM had inaugurated the bridge.  The PM was given rousing welcome by a large number of people gathered there. Everybody was delighted to see PM Modi at the venue.

Surprisingly, the BJP-led government in Assam  has not announced any name for  Bogibeel Bridge so far. Recently, some organisations have demanded that the Bogibeel bridge should be named after iconic personalities of their choice.

“We are very much fortunate to see the inauguration of the Bogibeel Bridge. The work started in 2002 and the progress of the work remained so slow that we thought that it would not be inaugurated in our lifetime. We really thanked the PM Narendra Modi to  expedite the work of the bridge  after coming to the  power,” Narendra Sonowal, an elderly person from  Dibrugarh said.

Avik Chakraborty is Northeast Now Correspondent in Dibrugarh. He can be reached at: [email protected]