The Bangladesh government has assigned the armed forces to oversee construction of the 6.15km Padma bridge by creating a separate brigade.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina formally announced the raising of the 99 Composite Brigade by hoisting its flag at a ceremony at army aviation base in Dhaka yesterday.
The brigade has been created to oversee the construction of the bridge across the Padma river and ensure security, said officials.
The new brigade is manned by more than 2,200 officers and soldiers drawn from other units, said a communication ministry official.
The proposal from the armed forces division to raise the brigade got the finance ministry approval on
Wednesday.
Before sending the proposal, the armed forces division took the consent from the prime minister, he said.
The unit would need around 600mn taka ($7.5mn)
annually, he said.
Padma bridge project director Shafiqul Islam said the new brigade and a team of experts belonging to the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology would jointly oversee the bridge construction.
He said the tenders were floated in June inviting bidders for the main bridge. He also said that tenders were floated last week inviting bidders for river training.
Meanwhile, the bridge division has extended the time for submitting bids for the main bridge by two months until November 9 as international construction companies showed no interest in the multi-billion dollar
construction project.
Officials said international construction firms lost interest after the government decided to bear the costs in the wake of donors, led by the World Bank withholding funding for the project.
Doubts have been expressed by Finance Minister AMA Muhith that the bridge construction could start during the tenure of this government.
Officials said a similar composite army brigade was deployed at the Bangabandhu bridge, earlier called the Jamuna bridge, more than a year after the completion of the bridge across the Jamuna river.
The armed forces division in its proposal said the expenses of the new brigade would be borne from the army budget.
No new recruitment would take place for the brigade, it said.