By TON Research Desk

The whole of Bangladesh has been truly rejoicing after the recent successful inauguration of the historic “Padma Bridge” which will link the south-western part of Bangladesh to its northern and eastern areas with scenarios of unimpeded transport between the two main regions of the country.

Padma Bridge is anticipated to accelerate political, social, economic, administrative, cultural, and overall development by integrating the two regions of the country once it will become operational. With this, the prospects for economic progress are certainly most welcome. The Padma Bridge has become a symbol of Bangladesh's pride, confidence, and self-respect.

The Padma Bridge will not only advance the connectivity between various areas of Bangladesh, but it will also deliver the required logistics and commercial impetus to attach the common areas between India and Bangladesh. This bridge will play a significant role in augmenting sub-regional connectivity.

Through this, the Bangladesh PM clearly wants to get the attention of the Bangladesh People. In the presence of international pressure and domestic criticism, she has succeeded in creating a piece of infrastructure that will transform the lives of the people of Bangladesh.

The plethora of development initiatives in Bangladesh that are being undertaken by the incumbent Bangladeshi prime minister with the help of several nations including China, Russia, and Japan may enable her to become Prime Minister for the fifth time.

After the World Bank pulled out, the government decided to fully fund the two-level steel truss Padma Bridge at a cost of $3.6 billion. Ordinary people donated 5 takas (RS 4.2) and 10 takas (RS 8.4) to an improvised Bridge Fund. A Chinese company won the contract and construction began in late 2014.

The bridge shows demonstrate the incredible marvel of engineering that it is 6.15 km long with 42 pillars that stand like enormous trunks in the choppy waters; a four-lane highway on the upper level and a single railway track on the lower level. This is the longest bridge not just on the Padma, but anywhere on the Ganga River which originates in the Himalayas and whose progeny the former is.

More than anything else, the bridge has boosted the spirit of not the government but of the people also. In 2020, as per the IMF, the actual GDP growth in Bangladesh fell to 3.5 percent, but went up to 5 percent in 2021; in difference, real GDP growth for India in 2020 sank to -6.6 percent, growing to 8.9 percent in 2021. However, after recovering from the pandemic, Bangladesh is on the road to progress to outshine and leave the least developing country (LDC) status.

As per IMF, Bangladesh’s per capita GDP overpassed India in 2020 which was an extraordinary achievement, even though India’s economy is ten times more and its population six times larger, both key factors in the calculation of per capita income ascend gradually from being 50 percent of India’s per capita in 2007 to 70 percent in 2014 and leveling with it in 2020.

The comparison with Pakistan, from its departure in 1971, is even more amazing that Bangladesh’s per capita income is today 37 percent higher. Bangladesh presented a definite elasticity in its labor laws when it became sovereign, which drove its change towards development and reduced its dependence on agrarian. Today, the textile industry contributes 20 percent to the GDP it accounts for 80 percent of Bangladesh’s export while the services sector follows a close second.

Women in the workforce are encouraged, alongside an NGO-government partnership focused on improving socio-economic parameters like infant and maternal mortality, health, sanitation, and drinking water and education. Unlike in India, NGOs are not anathema.

The politically astute Bangladesh PM is keenly aware that NGOs are not going to deliver the economic prosperity that aspirational Bangladeshis demand and which is surely going to underwrite her bid for an unprecedented fifth term in power.

So, over the last 14 years, she has thrown open her nation’s doors to all forms of aid as well as ventures. She has learned the Sri Lanka lesson, which once sought to exclusively woo China, and has diversified the awarding of contracts to a variety of nations.

The Padma Bridge was constructed by a Chinese company; the Rooppur nuclear power plant is being built by the Russians at a cost of $12 billion; the Maitree thermal project at Rampal is a 50:50 joint venture with India’s NTPC; the Dhaka metro is being built with considerable aid from Japan.

A Chinese company is constructing the tunnel under the Karnaphuli River in Chittagong to connect with the Asian Highway; Dhaka’s revamped airport is being funded by the Japanese; a Chinese company will partially build the Payra sea port, while a Belgian company is dredging the 75-km-long channel at Payra.

Significantly, the prime minister of Bangladesh seems acutely aware of the geopolitics at play in her region. She knows it is good to follow China’s economic miracle which pushed it to become Bangladesh’s largest trading partner in 2015, surpassing India. China and Bangladesh signed deals during the Chinese president's 2016 visit totaling $13.6 billion.

So, in 2019, the prime minister of Bangladesh soon after her visit to Beijing, announced that China could use the Chittagong and Mongla ports. A Chinese-built submarine base, which will house two Chinese submarines, is already coming up close by. It is well-known that Bangladeshi defense forces use Chinese frigates, fighter jets, and tanks, making it the second-largest buyer of Chinese arms after Pakistan.

After decades of its independence, Bangladesh has been transformed into an economic success tale story. The prime minster of Bangladesh is fully conscious that the route to the hearts and minds of her people and victory at the 2023 polls will come through economic prosperity. The energetic Bangladesh PM is using the security establishment to keep checks on civil society and the media in order to achieve the goal of a pleasant and successful nation.