PM names India’s longest bridge after Assam icon
LOCAL CONNECT Paying heed to popular demand, Modi dedicated the 9.15 km bridge to musician and filmmaker Bhupen Hazarika
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday inaugurated India’s longest bridge, which is built over Assam’s Lohit River, a tributary of the Brahmaputra.
The bridge will span 9.15 km to connect two smalls towns, Dhola at the river’s south bank and Sadiya in the north. The previous holder of the all-India record for bridge length, the BandraWorli Sea Link in Mumbai, is 5.6 km long.
During his address, Modi announced that the bridge will be named after the musician and filmmaker Bhupen Hazarika, honouring the request of an array of local groups. Hazarika was born in Sadiya.
“Bhupen Hazarika, during his lifetime, worked relentlessly for unity and integrity among all caste, creed and religion through his music and songs,” said novelist YD Thongchi, president of the Arunachal Pradesh Literary Society.
Hazarika himself was a kind of bridge between Assam and Arunachal Pradesh: Thongchi observed that, at the time of the artist’s birth, before it became part of Assam, Sadiya was administered under the British colonial borders that later gave shape to Arunachal Pradesh.
The Patriotic People’s Front of Assam, a civil society group comprised of writers and professionals, also declared support for naming the bridge after Hazarika. So did the United Liberation Front of Asom-Independent, a banned terror group that says it is inspired by Hazarika’s music.
His more martial tunes include Aji Kameng Simanta Dekhilu, from the time of the 1962 Indo-China War: “I saw the Kameng Frontier today, and witnessed the beastly deeds of the enemy”.
Hazarika’s songs often referred specifically to the importance of the Brahmaputra and the Lohit to the local community.
The government expects the bridge to facilitate the quick movement of army personnel and equipment to areas bordering China. It is designed to support the weight of a 60-tonne battle tank.
The bridge also features 182 piers with ‘seismic buffers’ — conical rods placed below the bridge that will help prevent damage in case of an earthquake. Civilian transit should get easier for those commuting either from Tinsukia, a local business hub, or from Dibrugarh, which has the region’s only government hospital, to Sadiya in upper Assam.