The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved the construction of India’s first twin-tube underwater road-cum-rail tunnel beneath the Brahmaputra River in Assam.
The underwater road-cum-rail tunnel between Gohpur and Numaligarh will be built at a total capital cost of Rs 18,662 crore.
The ambitious project involves building a 4-lane access-controlled greenfield highway from Gohpur on NH-15 to Numaligarh on NH-715, including a 15.79-km twin-tube Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) road tunnel under the Brahmaputra.
One of the tubes will also integrate railway infrastructure. The total project length will be 33.7 km and will be executed on an Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) mode.
At present, connectivity between Numaligarh and Gohpur spans about 240 km via the Kaliabhomora bridge near Silghat, requiring nearly six hours of travel through areas including Kaziranga National Park and Biswanath Town.
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the first under-river tunnel in India was constructed in Kolkata under the Hooghly River, and work is currently underway on the first undersea tunnel for the Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train project.
Officials said that while the tunnel beneath the Hooghly River is designed exclusively for metro services, the proposed Gohpur–Numaligarh project will mark the country’s first twin under-river tunnel to accommodate both rail and road traffic side by side.
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The project is also expected to enhance freight efficiency, lower logistics costs and stimulate socio-economic development in the region. It will provide improved connectivity to four major railway stations, two airports – including Donyi Polo Airport and Tezpur Airport – and two inland waterway terminals at Biswanath Ghat and Tezpur.
Of the total 33.7 km length, 15.79 km will comprise the twin-tube TBM tunnel, along with 1.26 km of road cut-and-cover and 4 km of rail cut-and-cover sections. The civil construction cost is estimated at Rs 11,982.36 crore, with land acquisition costs pegged at Rs 716.65 crore.
