Staff Reporter :
Both the ruling party and opposition lawmakers came down heavily against each other over the expenditure of the construction of the Padma Multipurpose Bridge (PMB) recently in Parliament.
The BNP lawmakers alleged that the Padma Bridge project was a textbook example of corruption by the ruling Awami League people, as ruling party lawmakers thanked Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and criticised the main opposition BNP, the World Bank and Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus over the Padma Bridge.
The debate took place when lawmakers took part in a general discussion for thanking the prime minister for building the bridge.
According to experts, due to poor planning, delay in the construction, the cost of construction of infrastructure projects rises.
Referring to an example of ‘incredible construction cost’, BNP lawmaker Rumeen Farhana said that the Padma Bridge is ‘Golden Bridge’ of Bangladesh like the ‘Golden Toilet’ in Kaunas Municipality, Lithuania.
She told Parliament that the mayor of Lithuania’s Kaunas municipality built a toilet at a cost of Tk 1.5 crore when it should cost only Tk 4.5 lakh. But because of the huge cost for the toilet, people joked calling it as ‘Golden Toilet’.
Similarly, we could call the Padma Bridge as Golden Bridge because of the huge corruption involved in its construction, she said adding that the construction of the Padma Multipurpose Bridge was supposed to start in 2011 and end in 2013.
The main project of Padma Bridge was planned by the caretaker government in 2007. At that time, the project was taken up with a budget of Tk 10,161 crore. But as later Awami
League government took charge, objections of corruption were raised by the World Bank which refused to fund for the project.
However, though the WB later expressed its interest to fund for construction of the bridge, the AL government refused.
Rumeen said that the construction gradually increased to Tk 30,000 crore, finally.
“Compared to ours, the cost of building bridges in India, China and Malaysia per kilometre is Tk 500-700 crore. According to the BUET Professor Shamsul Haque, our country spends Tk 500 crore per kilometre on roads and Tk 600 crore per kilometre on railway bridges,” she said.
She also said, “Considering the topography of the river, in some cases it could be double. In other words, a maximum of Tk 1,400 crore can be spent on the same bridge. But the construction cost of Padma bridge is Tk 5,000 crore per kilometre.”
Highlighting the details of ‘looting’ in the construction of the Padma Bridge, Rumeen said, “If you look at the Bhupen Hazarika Bridge of India, the construction cost of the nine-km bridge is 11 billion rupees. In other words, it is possible to build 30 Bhupen Hazarika bridges in India with the construction cost of the Padma Bridge. The 10-km-long bridge being constructed in India has six lanes at a cost of Tk 3,000 crore,” she said.
She said that it was possible to build 10 Padma bridges in India at the cost of one Padma bridge in Bangladesh.
Hundreds of crores of taka have been looted in the name of development projects, Rumeen Farhana said and added that now the time to enact a law titled ‘development denial act’ so that people can refuse development.
Taking part in the discussion, Education Minister Dr Dipu Moni said that the Padma Bridge foundation is the deepest pile foundation in the world.
“Tough challenging rivers had to be ruled, the largest floating crane was used and the world’s largest hammer, which made in Germany, was used to build this bridge,” she said. Dipu Moni said that while making criticism one should know the truth.
“Their (BNP) Prime Minister embezzled orphanage’s money…. BNP has the habit for looting money,” the AL lawmaker said.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has self respect and she didn’t accept the WB’s offer (later) and decided to construct the Padma Bridge by country’s own money, Dipu Moni said adding that those who don’t believe in independence, development and have no confidence on country’s people—just these people see only corruption.
“Sheikh Hasina is self respectful person and that’s why she didn’t take the WB money,” she added.
“There are far difference between Padma Setu and Bhupen Hazarika Setu,” Dipu Moni said adding, “The pile load of Bhupen Hazarika Setu is 60 tonnes, while Padma Setu pile load is 8,200 tonnes. Besides, Bhupen Hazarika Setu’s pillar is 120 tonnes, while Padma Setu pillar is 50,000 tonnes. The strength of Padma Bridge is 133 times greater than the Bhupen Hazarika Bridge.”
Dipu also advised the BNP lawmaker to raise any question only after knowing the truth.
When contacted with Dr Md Shamsul Haque, a professor of BUET and a specialist on transportation engineering, told The New Nation referring to the survey of donor agencies, “The cost of construction is around Tk60 crore a kilometre of four-lane highway usually in Bangladesh, it is also around Tk 95 crore of Dhaka-Mawa four-lane highway.
“But a four-lane highway cost is TK 28 crore for a kilometre in Europe, Tk 13 crore a km in China and Tk 10 crore in India,” the BUET professor said.
“In case of bridge, the average cost in other countries is Tk 1000 to 1500 crore for a kilometre. But the cost of the Padma Bridge is around Tk 5,000 crore for a kilometre,” he said
“The cost of infrastructure particularly the roads and bridges varied from country to country because of different expenditure for land acquisition and raw materials,” he added.
