• Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated Padma Bridge — the country’s longest bridge entirely built with domestic funding.

• The 6.15-km-long road-rail four-lane bridge is built over the Padma river connecting southwestern Bangladesh with the capital and other parts of the country.

• The multipurpose road-rail bridge, which is fully funded by the Bangladesh government, has been constructed at a cost of $3.6 billion.

• It connects Louhajong, Munshiganj to Shariatpur and Madaripur, linking the south-west of the country, to northern and eastern regions.

• The Padma Bridge would not only help improve intra-Bangladesh connectivity, but it will also provide much-needed impetus to logistics and businesses connecting India and the shared sub-region. The bridge will play an important role in fostering greater bilateral and sub-regional connectivity.

• The inauguration of the Padma bridge carries a lot of significance as the structure was built entirely with domestic financing. The project was initially expected to be funded by a consortium led by the World Bank. 

• In 2012, it cancelled the proposed credit saying it had credible evidence of high-level corruption among Bangladeshi officials. Bangladesh has all through denied these allegations and preferred not to approach the international global lender for funding. 

• The Padma Bridge project witnessed several engineering wonders as well as technological challenges. It emerged as the wonder structure for Bangladesh and saw the use of state-of-the-art machinery and know-how.

• PM Hasina said that the foundation of the Padma Bridge is still the deepest in the world. She said that the piles of this bridge have been laid up to a maximum depth of 122 metres while sophisticated technology has been used for earthquake prevention.

• Railway Major Bridge Engineering Group (RMBEG) of China has constructed the bridge.

Manorama Yearbook app is now available on Google Play Store and iOS App Store