The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on Thursday approved construction of four-lane bridge over river Brahmaputra between Dhubri and Phulbari on NH-127 B in Meghalaya.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told reporters in New Delhi on Thursday after a CCEA meeting.
He said the total length of the bridge will be 19.282 km.
The construction of the bridge project will cut huge travel distance from 205.3 km to only 19.282 km and saving in time of five hours to 20 minutes between Dhubri in Assam and Phulbari in Meghalaya.
“This alignment will further augment the transport network for the region by providing the shortest link between the western regions of Meghalaya as well as Barak valley region of Assam and southern states in NE namely Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura and the rest of the country, including the ports of Kolkata,” said an official statement.
The bridge will be built under the scheme of North-East Road Network Connectivity Project Phase-03? and it will take about six years to complete the project.
The government also approved a proposal for revised cost of project proposal titled ‘ADB assisted North Eastern State Roads Investment Programme (NESRIP)’, a centrally sponsored scheme implemented over a period of 5 years at a revised cost of Rs 2,144.56 crore from the earlier approved cost of Rs 1,353.83 crore.