Cabinet may clear infra projects over 40k crore, including Rs 19k crore tunnel through Brahmaputra in poll-bound Assam | India News
New Delhi: The cabinet is likely to approve more than half a dozen infrastructure projects worth over Rs 40,000 crore on Friday, including a nearly Rs 19,000 crore road-cum-rail tunnel through the Brahmaputra river in vote-bound Assam. This will be one of the largest government funded projects in the highway sector.The South Block will host the last cabinet meeting on Friday afternoon where more items may be taken up by the apex decision-making body for approval, officials said. The infrastructure projects will be mainly from road and rail sector.It may be recalled that recently an inter-ministerial panel headed by the Expenditure Secretary gave the green signal for the construction of 15.8 km twin tube tunnel connecting Gohpur and Numaligarh across the Brahmaputra in Assam. A tube will have a single rail track system. As per the design, no vehicles will be allowed to run through this tube.TOI had first reported on October 6 that the Ministry of Roads and Railways had identified three links for construction of the road-cum-rail tunnel, including an underwater tunnel through the Brahmaputra and a 22-km tunnel passing through the Chicken Neck Corridor in the northeast.The Northeast Frontier Railway has shared details of a new line and proposed alignment of the Damdangi-Rangapani-Bagdogra section, which includes construction of a 22-km tunnel, with the Ministry of Road Transport. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has finalized the alignment for the Gorakhpur-Siliguri Expressway project.Once the Brahmaputra tunnel project is completed, the travel time between Gohpur and Numaligarh will come down from 240 km to 34 km from the current 6-30 minutes, officials said. It will increase connectivity with Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and other northeastern states
