Bridge on the Padma

The bridge on the Padma river, inaugurated by Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Saturday, is a magnificent superstructure that symbolises the coming of age of the country, half-a-century after its blood-soaked birth. Built at a cost of $3.6 billion, the 6.15 km rail-road bridge is seen as the embodiment of all that’s good about modern Bangladesh — large-scale industrialisation and reduction in poverty, significant improvements in human development indices, important steps towards gender equality and an increasing share of women in the workforce. The bridge — lovingly called ‘Aamader swapner Padda setu’ (‘our dream bridge across the Padma’) — is among the five ‘national prestige projects’ undertaken by the government under Sheikh Hasina.

The opening of a bridge may not appear to some as a cause for national celebration, but Bangladeshis see it as a huge landmark, signifying the spectacular economic progress the country has made. Agriculture used to contribute roughly a third of the country’s GDP, but between 2010 and 2018, its share fell to below 15%; concurrently, the industry’s contribution to the GDP rose from below 20% to over 33%. Manufacturing’s contribution to the GDP has risen sharply, and exports have grown 20-fold since the 1990s. The focus on education has led to women’s empowerment — according to the World Bank, Bangladesh’s female work participation rate was 35% in 2020, much better than 19% for India. In 2007, the per capita income of the country was half that of India, but last year Bangladesh’s per capita income surged past India’s. The previous year, Bangladesh’s per capita GDP had overtaken India’s. Even as South Asia’s collective GDP contracted by 6.58% in 2020, that of Bangladesh grew by 3.5%.

The success of Bangladesh shows that epochal progress can be made by focusing on infrastructure, education, gender equality, manufacturing and exports. Through the new bridge on the Padma — which is projected to boost the GDP by over 1% — Bangladesh hopes to make the lives of travellers and business people easier, and share the fruits of progress with a large number of citizens in the country’s hinterland. It’s a hope full of inspiration.