Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: Cabinet is likely to approve over half a dozen infrastructure projects on Friday worth over Rs 40,000 crore, including nearly Rs 19,000 crore road-cum-rail tunnel through Brahmaputra river in poll-bound Assam. This will be one of the biggest govt funded projects in the highway sector.South Block will host the last Cabinet meeting on Friday afternoon where more items may be taken up by the highest decision making body for approval, officials said. The infrastructure projects would be largely from the road and railway sectors.It can be recalled that recently an inter-ministerial panel, headed by the expenditure secretary had given green signal for the construction of a 15.8 km twin tube tunnel across Brahmaputra in Assam connecting Gohpur and Numaligarh. One of the tubes will have provision for a single rail track. As per design, there will be no vehicular movement when trains run through this tube.TOI on Oct 6 had first reported that road and railway ministries have identified three links for construction of road-cum-rail tunnels, including underwater tunnels through Brahmaputra and a 22-km tunnel passing through Chicken Neck corridor in the northeast.The Northeast Frontier Railway had shared details of a new line of the Dumdangi-Rangapani-Bagdogra section and the proposed alignment, which includes construction of a 22-km tunnel, with the road transport ministry. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has finalised the alignment for the Gorakhpur-Siliguri Expressway project.Once the Brahmaputra tunnel project is complete, the travel time between Gohpur and Numaligarh will reduce from the current six-and-half hours to just 30 minutes, shortening the distance from 240 km to 34 km, officials said. This will enhance connectivity to Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and other northeastern states.
