The Bangladesh Army will oversee, as consultants, three aspects of the Padma bridge project, the Communication Minister has said.
“We have appointed the army as the local consultant,” Obaidul Quader said on Tuesday, disclosing the latest move in Bangladesh’s biggest infrastructure project.
He said the construction of a connecting road at the Jazeera point had already started and work on the one at Mawa point would follow shortly.
“The army will be the consultant on the construction of the two connecting roads and the building of the service area.”
Quader said three organisations had bought tenders to bid for constructing the bridge’s core structure.
He said a foreign consultant would be appointed to oversee the construction of the mainframe and river management. Eleven firms are said to have submitted their bids for the job.
The minister said a technical committee would take a final decision after studying the bids.
The much-hyped bridge will be constructed as per the plan and design of the World Bank and two other donors. “We’ll just finance it,” he said.
Bangladesh withdrew its funding request from the Washington-based lender earlier this year and floated international tenders for the building of the 6.15-km bridge with domestic funds.
Quader felt there was no scope to consider funding proposals made by Malaysia and China, as the tenders had already been floated. – bdnews24.com
