The Bangladesh Prime Minister Shiekh Hasina today inaugurated New Zealand company Maunsell Ltd. company designed 6.16 kilometers long rail-road bridge over the Padma river from the Mawa end in Munshiganj district, connecting the southwest of Bangladesh with Dhaka through road and rail links. This will be the shortest route between West Bengal and the North-East, going on to Myanmar, says The Tribune.
A Tweet by Awami League (Shiekh Hasina’s ruling Party) today says, “PadmaBridge will change the course of the lives of more than 30 million people of #Bangladesh. We thank HPM #SheikhHasina for her steely resolve, the technical team and the workers for their hard work, and the people who believed in us. This is the beginning of a new era…”
Sandeep Dixit writes in The Tribune (Saturday, June 25, 2022), ” Apart from the obvious benefits to the intra-country movement, the bridge will increase the country’s GDP by 1.23 percent. The road till now terminates at either bank of the Padma river. It is a risky and time-consuming process to load buses and lorries along with people and goods onto rickety steamers and unload them on the other bank.
Hundreds of people have died as steamers have sunk in the Padma. That is why many billboards in Dhaka announcing the opening of the bridge point out that people will no longer have to risk their lives.”
Foreign Minister Dr. A. K. Abdul Momen in a Tweet said that the Padma Bridge is not just a structure, it is a dream come true. The inauguration of the Padma Bridge is going to be an emotional moment marking a turning point in our national life.
Updated on 26 June 2022, 6.58 am AEST
