Hasina to inaugurate crucial Padma railroad bridge today

Sandeep Dikshit

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Dhaka, June 24

The city of Dhaka is bedecked with billboards announcing the inauguration of a road-cum-rail bridge over the mighty Padma river that will be the shortest route between West Bengal and the North-East, going on to Myanmar.

On surface, the inauguration of a bridge should not be a big deal but its opening on Saturday reflects the consolidation of power by Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the upswing in ties with India.

National prestige projects

• Rooppur nuclear power plant
• Bridge over Padma river
• Under-the-river tunnel in Chittagong
• Deep sea port
• Metro rail in Dhaka

It is one of the five national prestige projects being undertaken by Bangladesh which has turned the economic power.

After having formed the government in 2009, PM Hasina had faced embarrassment when the World Bank cancelled a $1.2 billion loan on grounds of corruption. Though the charge was later dismissed by a Canadian court, Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) also pulled out, collapsing the project entirely at a time when Hasina’s hold on power was tenuous.

Five years later in 2014, after coming to power for the second successive time, Hasina resolved to get the Padma Bridge constructed without depending on foreign financing. This was the time when the US was casting doubts on the recently held elections while India backed the manner in which they were held and Hasina emerged victorious.

Apart from the obvious benefits to the intra-country movement, the bridge will increase the country’s GDP by 1.23 per cent. 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.

The blow to Bangladesh’s dignity is now a distant memory. Hasina has pulled off the audacious move to build the Padma bridge with the country’s own funds.

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