DIBRUGARH, May 28 - The completion of the country�s longest rail-cum-road Bogibeel bridge over the mighty Brahmaputra will not be possible by 2017. Ajit Pandit, the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) of the NF Railways informed the visiting Union Minister of Railways Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu during a presentation at the construction site today that the bridge will not be ready before 2018.
The information was a shocker not only to the local media but also to Dibrugarh MP Rameshwar Teli and local MLA Prasanta Phukan, because the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), particularly the present Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal had announced earlier that the rail project would be completed by 2017.
When Rameshwar Teli and Prasanta Phukan asked, in the presence of the Railway Minister, why it would not be ready by 2017, the CAO of the NF Railways replied that it would be impossible by next year. The CAO said that the project may be completed sometime in 2018.
It needs to be mentioned here that the 4.94-km bridge, located 17 km downstream of Dibrugarh, was scheduled to be completed in seven years after the project took off in 2002, that is, 2009.
The project has been repeatedly delayed for several reasons and another extension of the deadline will again cause significant time and cost overruns.
When asked to comment on the delay, the Railway Minister, who had said that further delay would not be accepted, later said that the Ministry would examine the entire works of the project and then comment. �I will comment only after undertaking a review of the whole project,� he told newsmen.
He also refrained from giving another deadline.
The Minister was taken in a ferry for inspection of the construction site after a brief project presentation by Pandit.
