Bangladesh Unveils Padma river Bridge Paragraph

Bangladesh's Dhaka

The longest Padma river Bridge in Bangladesh was officially opened by Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina after eight years of construction delays, political unrest, excessive expenses, and fraud charges. The completion of Hasina's primary infrastructure project, the inauguration of the bridge over the raging Padma River, has been hailed by her
government as the crowning achievement. This demonstrates the administration's tenacity, resolve, and fortitude in the face of domestic and international criticism.

Padma river Bridge A Chinese company started building the six-kilometer bridge in November 2015 with the intention of establishing a road and rail link between the country's southwest and the capital, Dhaka. The double-layer steel truss bridge combines a single-track railway on the bottom level with a four-lane highway on the upper level.

Padma river Bridge, It is one of the most expensive projects Bangladesh has ever undertaken, costing $3.86 billion. The World Bank and other international funding Organization withdrew from the project as a result of a corruption scandal involving a Canadian construction business connected to the bridge, therefore the entire sum is now funded by its own government.

After being charged with bribing project supervisors, Canadian engineering company SNC-Lavalin was barred from submitting bids for ten years for World Bank projects. Once some wiretap evidence against corporate officials was deemed inadmissible by a court, prosecutors in Canada eventually decided not to press graft charges against them.

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Sheikh Hasina announced that the project would be self-funded by her government. Since Bangladesh had no prior experience constructing such infrastructure without financial support from various donors, her plan was met with a barrage of skepticism from the nation's economists as well as political opponents.

At the launching ceremony for the Padma river Bridge on Saturday, Hasina recalled the crowd's skepticism. "Some people predicted that we would always be dependent on others, but Hasina's father, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, taught us the value of self-respect," she remarked.

"This Padma Bridge is not a pile of brick and cement," she declared. "This bridge is a symbol of Bangladesh's pride, respect, and capability."

The most widely read English daily newspaper in Bangladesh, The Daily Star's Mahfuz Anam, stated in a commentary that the " Padma river Bridge marks the most public and direct defiance of a multilateral organization like the World Bank and through it, of donor practice in general."

Anam, a frequent opponent of Hasina, stated that "many countries make their own bridges and with their own resources" but that completing this Padma river Bridge is a big step for Bangladesh because "it breaks down forever our image of a country dependent on handouts."

Political analysts view the building of the Padma river Bridge as the most noteworthy accomplishment of the Hasina-led Awami League (AL) administration in its three straight terms in office spanning more than ten years, with a national election scheduled for next year.

Beijing views the bridge, which was built by the state-owned China Major Bridge Engineering Company, Ltd., as a turning point in the relationship between China and Bangladesh. The Bangladeshi government rejected the Chinese state media's attempt to refer to it as a component of the Belt and Road Infrastructure (BRI) earlier this week.

The Bangladeshi government had previously rejected Chinese offers to pay for the bridge's construction, buoyed by its expanding economy and foreign cash reserves.

According to economist Mustafizur Rahman, Bangladesh's bureaucracy has never been able to carry out such a large-scale undertaking. "Seeing that we can successfully finish things like the Padma Bridge is encouraging. For us, it's a terrific motivator.

In addition, he claimed that the Padma river Bridge will boost employment, service sector activity, and tourism in the southwest region, contributing to an annual GDP growth of 1.3% for Bangladesh.

According to experts, the Padma river Bridge's construction, which required more than 4,000 engineers, of which one-third were from Bangladesh, represents a significant technological accomplishment.

The Padma river Bridge needs 41 support pillars and has 122-meter-deep underwater pilings, a record. The water flow volume in the river is second only to the Amazon River globally at some locations.