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From Jamuna to Padma

Xiav Zhu and Arun Banerjee
The stakes are extraordinarily high, and it is absolutely essential that the Padma Bridge is prepared and implemented with maximum care. Fortunately, the experience from building the Jamuna Bridge could well serve the government and development partners. It is now time to recall-some of the key lessons learned from that experience.
THE completion of the Jamuna Bridge in 1998 was a landmark achievement for the people of Bangladesh, connecting more than 30 million people to the country's transport and infrastructure network. Before the bridge, ferries plied across the Jamuna river with long waiting times for the thousands of car and trucks waiting to board every day. Today, the nearly 2 million vehicles that cross the bridge every year enjoy lower transport costs and quicker travel times. A striking example of the bridge's impact is the travel time from Dhaka to Bogra --cut from 20 hours to 6 hours.
Most people recognise that the Jamuna Bridge is the single largest investment ever made by Bangladesh and every citizen has contributed by paying various special taxes. What is less remembered, however, is that this highly complex project was managed extremely skillfully by the government, resulting in high quality works, no time delays, and minimum cost over-run. Now the government is embarking on an equally challenging project -- the Padma Multipurpose Bridge. This is going to be even more technically complex, longer in length, and twice as expensive as the Jamuna Bridge. But the development impact could be even bigger. It is expected to boost socioeconomic growth in the relatively underdeveloped south-west region of the country. The bridge would not only lead to cutting down travel time and cost, but would also contribute to improve railway link, telecommunications, power, and gas transmission, in addition to road connectivity leading to greater integration, much more dynamic economic activities and stronger growth.
The stakes are extraordinarily high, and it is absolutely essential that the Padma Bridge is prepared and imple-mented with maximum care. Fortunately, the experience from building the Jamuna Bridge could well serve the government and development partners. It is now time to recall some of the key lessons learned from that expe-
rience.
Government's ownership of and commitment to the Jamuna Bridge project was critical to the project's success. The government then decided to establish a fully empowered implementing agency, which coordinated and .managed-the numerous-activities and parties involved in the project preparation and implementation.
For example, the government appointed some of its most experienced civil servants to the top positions in the Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge Authority (JMBA) and kept staffing changes to a minimum during the construction phase. The high-powered board of directors, which included several members of the cabinet, performed in an exemplary fashion, making timely decisions on highly complex issues.
An internationally experienced management consultant firm was hired and provided day-to-day support, helping manage contractual matters and implement the Resettlement, Environmental, and Erosion and Flood Action Plans. The firm played an indispensable role in strengthening JMBA's project management capability. Similarly, a panel of world-renowned experts was formed to provide the necessary guidance and expertise on complex technical issues in a timely fashion.
For projects of this magnitude and complexity, it is essential to have a sound financing plan. The total cost
must be thoroughly studied and there needs to be a balance of funding from domestic and foreign sources. Opportunities for private sector financing should be explored. Innovative mobilisation of local resources too should be considered, for example by floating -infrastruoture development bonds in local currency. Implementation should proceed only when the entire financing has been guaranteed. This was the case with Jamuna Bridge and it never suffered any funding delays despite very large requirements during the peak implementationperiod.
As the Jamuna Bridge demonstrated, co-financing is an effective mechanism to fund large, complex and risky projects. However, for co-financing to be fully effective, a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities must be agreed upon early in the process. One co-financier must take the lead to ensure that a common agreed approach for preparation and implementation is followed.
For the Jamuna Bridge, the World Bank was designated the lead donor. In order to fulfill this role the World Bank maintained a core group of staff in its field office in Dhaka to provide day-to-day assistance and guidance to all project teams. Also, the same World Bank team that prepared the project remained in charge of implementation. This provided the necessary continuity, skills and accountability during the implementation phase.
Land acquisition and the shifting of utilities and structures should be completed before the start of physical implementation of the Padma Bridge. Comprehensive site readiness is probably the single most important element to avoid delays in large, complex infra-sypcture project?, requi^s, early, coordination between the physical works team and the teams preparing the social and environmental components.
The preparation and implementation of the social and environmental components of large civil works must be given the same careful attention as the preparation of the physical components. In the case of the Jamuna Bridge, we underestimated the resources needed for the social and environmental components and funding was not firmed up until well into project implementation.
Like Jamuna Bridge or any other such large-scale infrastructure project, the construction of Padma Bridge will require relocation of some households and few commercial activities. These impacts can be largely minimised by taking adequate mitigation measures through designing and implementing an appropriate Resettlement Action Plan.
It is critical to adequately consult the affected people and ensure that they receive a fair compensation before the actual resettlement takes place. Consideration might even be given to splitting the Padma Bridge project into two projects, one focusing on the physi-
cal works while the other focusing on the social and environmental components.
The above key lessons from Jamuna Bridge experience as we see are extremely useful for us to decide on how we want to do the Padma Bridge and any other large scale and complex-infrastructure projects. In our view, as long as the government, people, along with development partners will work in the same spirit, with the same strong will and commitment, we could undoubtedly replicate the success of Jamuna Bridge into Padma and other key infrastructure projects in Bangladesh. And doing so will also rewrite the track record of ADP implementation in the recent past.
The World Bank had the privilege of playing a leading supportive role in the planning and implementation of the Jamuna Bridge. We look forward to having a similar privilege to be part of this important project that would improve the lives and livelihood of 30 million people in the south-west region and on the nation as a whole and will bring positive impact on transport, trade, agriculture, education, health and other sectors. We are fully committed to supporting this top priority project in partnership with other developmentpartners.
Xian Zhu is Country Director, the Wortd Bank Bangladesh, and Arun Banarjee is Country Sector Coordinator, Energy & Infrastructure, South Asia Regon. World Bank The views expressed in this artide are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank Group