Padma bridge tolls will outweigh construction cost: finance minister

Bangladesh invested Tk 301.93 billion on the building of the bridge and strategy roads. Apart from this, the govt allotted resources for the development of railways on the bridge.

Bangladesh was meant to open up the bridge to traffic by Jun 30, but Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina stated on Wednesday that the opening of the bridge was delayed right until the finish of 2022.

“We hope to launch it by the finish of this year as the key minister said,” Kamal reported on Thursday soon after a assembly of a cabinet committee.

The meeting accredited a proposal to appoint a joint venture of Korea Expressway Company and China Key Bridge Engineering Firm Limited for a period of five yrs at a price tag of Tk 6.93 billion for the maintenance of the bridge and toll collection.

Questioned about the doable charge of toll to cross the bridge, Kamal explained it was not set however. “You will get to know once it can be mounted.”

“We can say that we need to get well the cash expended on this undertaking until the previous working day from the toll, and we will do it,” he explained. “We are gathering tolls from other jobs. Tolls will be gathered from the bridge as properly. We will not only accumulate tolls, but we will also make a profit. We will reach much more than what we’ve used on the job.”

“Normally, we are unable to move ahead. We have to transfer from a person challenge to an additional, from just one bridge to another. We require revenue for that.

“This will be a earn-get condition for equally users [of the bridge] and the authorities.”

Requested how lots of years it would just take to commence earning a financial gain from the bridge, Kamal stated the authorities did not operate on it in depth however.