Padma bridge tolls will outweigh construction cost: finance minister

Bangladesh invested Tk 301.93 billion on the construction of the bridge and tactic streets. Aside from this, the govt allotted resources for the building of railways on the bridge.

Bangladesh was supposed to open up the bridge to traffic by Jun 30, but Primary Minister Sheikh Hasina explained on Wednesday that the opening of the bridge was delayed right up until the conclusion of 2022.

“We hope to start it by the conclude of this year as the prime minister explained,” Kamal said on Thursday following a meeting of a cabinet committee.

The assembly approved a proposal to appoint a joint enterprise of Korea Expressway Company and China Significant Bridge Engineering Company Limited for a period of time of 5 yrs at a value of Tk 6.93 billion for the routine maintenance of the bridge and toll collection.

Asked about the achievable charge of toll to cross the bridge, Kamal claimed it was not fastened still. “You will get to know after it truly is mounted.”

“We can say that we should recuperate the money put in on this task until the past working day from the toll, and we will do it,” he claimed. “We are accumulating tolls from other jobs. Tolls will be gathered from the bridge as effectively. We won’t only obtain tolls, but we will also make a profit. We will accomplish much more than what we have expended on the challenge.”

“In any other case, we are unable to shift ahead. We have to shift from a person task to a different, from one bridge to another. We require profits for that.

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

Questioned how numerous years it would acquire to commence creating a profit from the bridge, Kamal explained the authorities did not get the job done on it in element yet.