NEW DELHI: The Union Cabinet has approved infrastructure projects worth over Rs 31,000 crore, including construction of the country’s first road-cum-rail tunnel under the Brahmaputra in Assam. The twin-tube common tunnel with approach roads for movement of vehicles and trains, only the second in the world, would cost Rs 18,662 crore.It will connect Gohpur and Numaligarh in Assam and will cut travel time from about 6 hours to just 20 minutes. The project, to be fully funded by govt, will not just reduce the travel distance from 240 km to roughly 34 km improving connectivity but also has strategic significance, I&B minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said while announcing the Cabinet decision. This four-lane tunnel will ensure high-speed connectivity to Arunachal and provide “strategic resilience” for defence purposes. The minister said the twin tubes would be interconnected at intervals of 500 metres.Officials said the tunnel would be built around 32 metres beneath the Brahmaputra’s lowest bed level. One of the tubes will have provision for a single rail track and no vehicular movement will be allowed when trains run through this tube.

PM Modi called the Brahmaputra tunnel project as a “landmark boost to connectivity in the northeast”.In a post on X, he said, “…This transformative project will enhance connectivity, reduce logistics costs and accelerate growth across Assam and the entire Northeast.”TOI has learnt that originally govt had included the connectivity between Gohpur and Numaligarh as a part of the Special Accelerated Road Development Programme for North East in 2008 by constructing a bridge. But later a proposal was mooted to build a road tunnel beneath the Brahmaputra. Later, it was modified to have a common tunnel for both vehicles and trains.A similar 22-km road-cumrail tunnel passing through Chicken Neck corridor in the northeast is also in planning stage. Besides the tunnel, Cabinet approved three NH projects with a combined cost of over Rs 11,000 crore — a 107.7-km fourlane highway in Gujarat, a 154.6-km highway stretch in Maharashtra and an 80-km corridor of NH-167 in Telangana.In rail sector, three multitracking projects covering 12 districts across Delhi, Haryana, Maharashtra and Karnataka were approved at an estimated cost of Rs 18,509 crore. The approved projects will add 389 km to the existing network of railways. Multitracking works are scheduled for completion by March 2031. These include the laying of third and fourth line between Kasara and Manmad in Maharashtra, which will have the second longest tunnel on the rail network.