Padma Bridge a reality now

Bangladesh has achieved another milestone as the last span of the much-talked-about Padma Bridge was installed today.

The 6.15km bridge from Munshiganj's Mawa to Shariatpur's Zajira is visible now. With this, the country’s long-cherished dream of building the bridge with own financing has come to be true.

Dewan Abdul Quader, executive engineer of the Padma Bridge project, said the task of installing the span completed at 11:15am.

After completion of other work, the bridge will connect the capital Dhaka with 21 southwestern districts, thus contributing to the country’s economic prosperity.

The first span of the bridge was installed on 30 September 2017 on pillars 37 and 38. It has taken 38 months to complete the span installation work.

The bridge has two decks – the lower deck is for train track, while the upper level will be dedicated for the road transports.

Bangladesh is implementing the Pamda Bridge project with its own funds after the World Bank and global lenders had cancelled financing over corruption allegations.

The allegations were later found to be not true.