The India Cabinet is a landmark infrastructure project: The first under-water twin tunnel rail-cum-road in India over the Brahmaputra River in Assam.
This ₹18,662 crore project will reduce the travelling time by a significant margin and enhance connectivity in the Northeast.
Who is Leading This Project?
The 33.7 km long green field corridor between Gohpur in NH-15 and Numaligarh in NH-715 was given the go-ahead by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
It has a 15.79 km twin-tube Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) underwater tunnel in which one tube is used by a four-lane access-controlled highway and the other by railway infrastructure.
Other elements are 1.26 km road cut-and-cover and 4 km rail cut-and-cover lengths, which were to be carried out through the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) mode at an overall cost of ₹18,662 crore (civil cost ₹11,982 crore and land purchase cost ₹717 crore.
Technical Specifications of the Corridor
| Feature | Details |
| Total Length | 33.7 km |
| Twin Tube Tunnel | 15.79 km (road in one tube, rail provision in other) |
| Road Cut-and-Cover | 1.26 km |
| Rail Cut-and-Cover | 4 km |
| Highways Connected | NH-15, NH-715 |
| Railways Connected | Rangia-Mukongselek (Gohpur side), Furkating-Mariani (Numaligarh side) |
What are the Benefits of this Connectivity?
The present road through Kaliabhomora bridge at Silghat is 240km in length and can be traversed in six hours with stops at Numaligarh, Kaziranga National Park and Biswanath. This will be reduced to approximately 34km and 20minutes in the new corridor.
It incorporates multimodal connections to 11 economic nodes (e.g., Numaligarh Industrial Area, Jorhat DIC), 3 social nodes (Dima Hasao tribal district, Udalguri and Darrang aspiration districts), 2 tourist nodes (Kaziranga National Park, Deopahar site), 8 logistic nodes, 2 railway stations, 2 airdromes (Tezpur, Dony Polo Holongi Itanagar) and 2 inland waterways.
The project promotes efficiency of freight, reduces costs of logistics and propels socio-economic development of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and other states in the Northeast.
It enhances tactics of interconnectedness in a border area, trade, industry and troop movement and links cities such as Numaligarh, Tezpur, Gohpur, Dibrugarh and Itanagar. It is projected to create 80 lakh person-days of both direct and indirect jobs.
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