Being able to talk about ever longer bridges, instead of ever higher walls, is a rare satisfaction. Even more so in Bangladesh, where nobody remembers the last time they were in the news for something other than a catastrophe. The Padma Bridge, the greatest engineering work in its history, has raised the self-esteem of the Bengalis, with important regional derivatives.
With it, eighty million Bengalis gain in connectivity. Especially the 35 million in southwestern Bangladesh, which is becoming the new frontier of industrialization. All this, thanks to the bridge that opened to traffic yesterday, with such enormous expectation that it collapsed in a few hours. Contributing to this was the thousands of Sunday riders on motorcycles – banned as of today – who skipped the ban on stopping halfway to take photos, causing scuffles with the police. In a first accident, two motorcyclists died.
Such enthusiasm is only explained in a country where commuting lasts almost as long as the working day. Even beyond the chaotic Dhaka, moving around in Bangladesh is unnerving, not because of its relief – the country is a plain – but because some of the largest rivers on the planet converge there, which also overflow during the rainy season.
Half a century later, the half of Pakistan that wanted to be independent is far from being a unified nation, despite being the most homogeneous in the subcontinent. There are actually four regions, dramatically separated by the course of the Ganges –which they call Padma–, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna. A single bridge crosses the first two and two the second, so you have to go around hundreds of kilometers or rely on ferries.
One of the most expensive divisions is the one that separates the industrial heartland, with Dhaka, from the south-west coast. The new bridge over the Padma creates a direct route, which also saves many hours on the journey between Dhaka and Calcutta –in India– two of the largest metropolitan areas in the world.
When the project began to be discussed twenty years ago, Calcutta was a much larger and more populous city than Dhaka. Today, Calcutta is still the Bengali cultural mecca –they share a language and alphabet– but the capital of Bangladesh has more inhabitants and any fear of absorption has been overcome. In addition, Bangladesh's per capita income surpassed India's last year, thanks to industrialization, which has multiplied female employment, while it was reduced in India.
The economic impact will be immediate. The infrastructure, which has cost 3.6 billion euros – almost triple what was initially estimated – will add 1.23% to the national GDP, annually, according to economists.
The pride was evident yesterday among the motorists who lined up the bridge that employed 4,000 engineers and that, as the media repeat, has broken the world record for the depth of the pillars – 122 meters – due to the instability of the river bed.
When Prime Minister Sheikh Jasina cut the inaugural ribbon on Saturday, thousands of people took the opportunity to walk a few hundred meters and take photos.
There is some skeptical voice. "This means more cars in Dhaka," says a resident of the city with the worst infrastructure in the world, even though he has started building his first metro line. "The time we save on the ferry, we'll waste in traffic jams." The bridge bears the seal of Hasina, who has carried it forward against all odds. His decades-old rival, Jaleda Zia, said it was impossible and buried him. When Hasina brought him back to life, the World Bank denied him financing, alleging corruption, later unsubstantiated. This withdrawal was followed by those of Tokyo and the Asian Development Bank. "We will pay for it," Hasina said.
A company from Wuhan won the contest and has delivered it in eight years. Still, Hasina, who gets along with New Delhi, maintains that it is not part of the New Silk Road. In fact, the bridge also represents a wonderful opportunity for the remotest states of northeastern India to break their isolation.
