New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today on the third anniversary of the NDA government opened India’s longest Dhola-Sadiya river bridge in Assam and named it after singer Bhupen Hazarika.

The PM slammed the previous Congress-led UPA government for “long delays” in infrastructure projects, including on this bridge project.

“You have been waiting for this bridge for the last five decades, today you have got it. And if (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee had been re-elected in 2004, this bridge would have been ready 10 yrs ago,” the PM said.

The opening of the bridge was described by Modi as “the fulfilment of Vajpayee’s dream”.

The PM also congratulated the BJP government in Assam which has just completed one year in power, after decades of Congress rule.

“Within one year of BJP rule in Assam, the state got rid of a lot of problems,” the PM said, again taking a dig at the Congress party.

The Dhola-Sadiya Bridge is built over the river Lohit, which is a tributary of the Brahmaputra. It links Dhola in Assam to Sadiya in Arunachal Pradesh. The bridge will reduce travel time between the two states by as much as four hours.Modi earlier tweeted and described the bridge as “one of the most important infrastructure projects to be undertaken” in the country.The bridge is capable of bearing the weight of a 60-tonne battle tank. It will improve the movement of civilian and military vehicles to strategic locations, all the way up to Anini in Arunachal Pradesh. Anini is about 100km from India’s border with China. It will also reduce the time it takes the armed forces to reach the border in Dibang and Anjaw. That journey currently takes about two days.