Staff Reporter:
Bangladesh Bridge Authority (BBA) yesterday inked a deal with a Chinese firm to widen the Jamuna Bridge by 3.5 metres, expanding its breadth using the now abandoned structure built for the old railway tracks, concerned officials said yesterday.
“We and signed an agreement with China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) to widen and renovate the Jamuna Bridge under a joint venture at our office here,” a BBA spokesman said.
He said BBA Chief Engineer Kazi Md Ferdous signed the deal with Wang Benqian of the Chinese cor-poration also called CCCC-CRBC JV to smoothen movements of increased number of vehicles.
A structure was earlier built as an expanded part of the bridge for train movements while later a separate railway bridge was constructed over the Jamuna River to reduce load on the bridge and make faster the train movements.
The opening of the new railway bridge made redundant the old expanded structure with width of some 3.5 meters for train tracks.
“Increased number of traffic could move on the on the bridge with the widening of its breadth and the related renovation works under the agreement will ensure its long-term sustainability,” BBA director Altaf Hossain Sheikh, who is an additional secretary to the government, said after the inking of the deal.
Sheikh said that higher authorities asked BBA to expand the bridge’s breadth ensuring the quality as the bridge connects northwestern and western Bangladesh with the rest of the country by road.
