Last slab placed

South and west of the country are now connected through the dream Padma Bridge as all slabs on the 6.15-kilometre road were placed on the bridge's top layer on Monday.
The Padma Multipurpose Bridge (PMB) project set up the last road slab on Mawa side at 10:12 am, linking both sides.
As many as 2,917 slabs have been placed on the bridge.
Road transport and bridges minister Obaidul Quader at a programme in the city on Monday said the bridge will open for transports by June 2022. The carpeting work on the road slabs will start at the end of October next.
"With this, we're very much close to the country's dream bridge construction work," says project director (PD) Mohammad Shafiqul Islam over phone.
Mr Islam, who witnessed the work on the site, says Padma bridge project has overcome all technical problems and getting the bridge ready before next July is now possible.
Earlier on June 20, the PMB project completed the rail part of the road-cum-rail bridge, but both sides' rail link was not established.
But the project has made approach roads on Jajira and Mawa sides of the bridge ready before its construction work began.
"Now, people can walk through this road. Vehicles can't move on the bridge as placement of expansion joints is yet to be completed," said another project official from the spot.
Officials say the bridge has now some finishing work like placement of rail track on its bottom part, gas line, electric line for street lighting, bitumen and road dividers.
The PMB project has gone through various technical problems since the project was launched after the present government came to the power in 2009.
Its major obstacle was with the funding from development partners.
Later, it faced the design fault for which foundation work was delayed for more than two years.
The bridge was visible by completing placement of spans on its 41 piers on March 31, 2020.
According to project office, the Chinese contractor has completed 94.25 per cent of the bridge-building work.
But the river training work, which is to ensure water flow under the bridge, is behind schedule.
Another Chinese contractor completed 87.25 per cent of the work.
The project has another challenge in completing the rail part to connect the bridge on both sides under Padma Bridge Rail Link project.
Although rail slab placement work was carried out by the PMB project office under the Bangladesh Bridges Authority, the Bangladesh Railway has to do track placement work after finishing the road part.
The PD said they would sit soon to assess the time of handing over the rail part of the work to the BR.
As the road part has still some work, he said, it might not be technically possible to carry out the rail part work simultaneously.
"We'll look into the matter... We're trying to hand over the BR's part by resolving technical issues as it's also necessary to complete the rail part to meet the target of launching the road-cum-rail bridge simultaneously from the first day of the inauguration."

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