Railways, the Union Transport Ministry, and the Border Road Organization (BRO) have decided to invest 7,000 crore in Assam to build the country’s first underwater road-cum-rail tunnels across the Brahmaputra River. The project will include three parallel tunnels, one for road traffic, another for rail traffic, and a third for emergency purposes.
The tunnels will be 9.8 kilometres long each, and this will be the first project to use integrated tunnel construction. These tunnels will be interconnected with cross passages for emergency evacuation and can be used for both civilian and military purposes. The multi-modal transportation system aims to connect the rail and highway networks in North Assam, Tawang, and the rest of Arunachal Pradesh via the Jamurihat-Silghat axis.
The tunnel will run about 9 kilometres upstream from the existing Kaliabomara (Tezpur) road bridge, connecting Jakhlabandha railway station on the south bank and Dhaliabil railway station on the north bank of the Brahmaputra. Tunnel boring machines will be used to build the tunnels, which will take two to two and a half years to complete. This will reduce travel time between Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, as there are currently five bridges connecting the two states across the Brahmaputra.