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- Bangladesh’s Padma Multipurpose Bridge was recently inaugurated.
More about Padma Multipurpose Bridge:
- The Padma Multipurpose Bridge is a multipurpose road-rail bridge across the Padma River in Bangladesh.
- It connects to Shariatpur and Madaripur, linking the southwest of the country, to the northern and eastern regions.
- The Padma Bridge is considered to be the biggest and most challenging infrastructure asset ever created in Bangladesh.
- Significance:
- Characteristics:
- The main bridge is 6.15 km long — 9.83 km in all, including the road and rail viaducts at the two ends — and 21.65 m wide.
- It is high enough for the largest vessels to pass underneath.
- Distance:
- It will dramatically cut the road distance between Dhaka and cities to its west such as Khulna, Jessore, and Barisal.
- Once the railway line on the bridge is opened, Dhaka could come within three-and-a-half hours of Kolkata.
- It will potentially revolutionize trade and communication with India.
- Economic:
- The bridge is expected to give an unprecedented boost to communications, trade, and the economy of Bangladesh as a whole.
- GDP growth:
- The government estimates GDP to increase by 1.23 percent.
- Connectivity:
- By providing road and rail links between the country’s relatively less-developed southwest and the more developed east, the bridge will lead to greater integration of regional markets.
- Construction:
- The Padma Bridge has been built by the China Major Bridge Engineering Company, a subsidiary of the state-owned China Railway Group.
- Characteristics:
Padma River:
- The Padma is a major river in Bangladesh.
- It is the main distributary of the Ganges.
- The Padma River is known for heavy bank erosion, shifting channels, and sandbars that continually emerge in its course.
- Origin & course:
- The Ganges branches into two distributaries, the Hooghly and the Padma at Giria in the Murshidabad district of India.
- The Padma enters Bangladesh from India near Nawabganj and meets the Jamuna (the name of the Brahmaputra in Bangladesh) near Aricha and retains its name.
- It then meets with the Meghna near Chandpur and adopts the name “Meghna”.
- Tributaries:
- Its main tributary is the Mahananda.
- Its principal distributary is the Madhumati (called the Garai in its upper course).
- Mouth:
- Bay of Bengal
- Issues due to Farakka Barrage:
- After the construction of the Farakka Barrage on the Ganges River in West Bengal, the maximum flows in the Padma River were reduced significantly.
- The flow reduction caused many problems in Bangladesh:
- Loss of fish species,
- Drying of Padma’s distributaries,
- Increased saltwater intrusion from the Bay of Bengal,
- Damage to the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans.
Source: PIB
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