Qualla: Padma Bridge

Padma Bridge: Introduction

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Md Shaifuzzaman Ayon, CC BY-SA 4.0. For decades, crossing the Padma River - the main distributary of the Ganges as it flows through Bangladesh - meant waiting for a ferry. Southwest Bangladesh, home to 30 million people across 21 districts, remained cut off from Dhaka by a waterway so wide and deep that engineers called bridging it the most challenging construction project in the country's history. On 25 June 2022, then-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the Padma Multipurpose Bridge, a 6.15-kilometer steel truss structure carrying a four-lane highway above and a single-track railway below. The Bangladesh Air Force marked the occasion with an aerobatics display over the bridge while a commemorative 100-taka note entered circulation. The celebrations were proportional to what the country had endured to get there.

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Image: Md Shaifuzzaman Ayon | CC BY-SA 4.0

Padma Bridge: Fifty Years of Waiting

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Shariful Islam (Masum), CC BY-SA 4.0. The idea predates Bangladesh itself. In 1971, Japanese survey experts submitted a feasibility report to East Pakistan recommending a bridge over the Padma as part of a Dhaka-to-Faridpur road. After independence, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first president, announced the project - ...

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Image: Shariful Islam (Masum) | CC BY-SA 4.0

Padma Bridge: The Scandal That Nearly Killed It

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Shariful Islam (Masum), CC BY-SA 4.0. In what became one of South Asia's most consequential corruption controversies, the World Bank withdrew its funding commitment after finding what it called "credible evidence" of "a high-level corruption conspiracy among Bangladeshi government officials, SNC-Lavalin executives, a...

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Image: Shariful Islam (Masum) | CC BY-SA 4.0

Padma Bridge: Steel Over the Padma

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit KM._Faysal, CC BY-SA 3.0. The engineering challenge was formidable. The Padma is not merely wide - it is deep, fast-moving, and geologically unstable, its bed constantly shifting with the sediment load of the Ganges basin. The bridge required 42 pillars, each resting on six piles driven deep into the rive...

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Image: KM._Faysal | CC BY-SA 3.0

Padma Bridge: What a Bridge Can Change

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Azim Khan Ronnie, CC BY-SA 4.0. On its first day open to the public, 15,200 vehicles crossed the Padma Bridge in eight hours. Within its first year, toll collection reached 8 billion taka. More than 15,000 vehicles now cross daily, connecting 13 of the southwest's 21 districts - regions with above-average pover...

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Image: Azim Khan Ronnie | CC BY-SA 4.0