DIBRRUGARH: It's the connection the northeast has waited for the last 16 years since construction began. As PM Narendra Modi on Tuesday dedicated Bogibeel bridge, India's longest rail-road and a double-decker bridge, to the nation, he ushered in a new era of travel between Assam and Arunachal Pradesh . The 4.9km-long bridge cuts the five-hour 212km travel time from Dibrugarh to Itanagar by ferry to barely three hours by road.Modi flagged off the Tinsukia-Naharlagun train service via the bridge. Bogibeel will cut train travel between Tinsukia in Assam and Naharlagun in Arunachal by over 10 hours. The bridge is also seen as an attempt to bolster defence capability along the China border.People can now travel to Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata and Bengaluru directly from northern Assam or eastern Arunachal without coming to Guwahati.Almost 2 lakh people, by administration's estimates, in attendance to witness the inauguration, Modi spoke at Kareng Chapori on the Brahmaputra's north bank after crossing the bridge.Modi reiterated the Centre's commitment to improve the region's connectivity, and said in the last four-and-a-half years the NDA government had stressed on connectivity in the northeast along with completing pending projects expeditiously.Stating the bridge's construction started in 2002 under Vajpayee's leadership, Modi said it was because of the lackadaisical attitudes of previous governments that its completion was delayed. He said that on assuming power at the Centre, the NDA government completed more than half the project in just four-and-a-half years. Had NDA government been in power in 2004, Modi said, the bridge could have been completed 7 to 8 years ago.The PM said under the Act East Policy, efforts are on to expand connectivity the northeast to Southeast Asia