Background: the Brahmaputra as National Waterway 2 and the port works along it

Background

The same Brahmaputra whose flooding closes Kaziranga every monsoon is also a working transport route, declared as National Waterway 2. A set of projects along it was taken up at Guwahati with a combined value of about 526 crore rupees. The largest single piece is an elevated road corridor of about 180 crore rupees connecting Pandu Port in Guwahati to National Highway 27. Two cruise terminals, at Biswanath Ghat and at Neamati, together account for about 158 crore rupees. A Regional Centre of Excellence at Bogibeel in Dibrugarh, costing about 188 crore rupees, had its foundation ceremony at the same event. Taken together these works are meant to tie river transport on the Brahmaputra to the road network rather than leave the two separate. The pairing of a national waterway number with a national highway number is the kind of detail examiners like.