Friday
19th Apr 2024
Dhivehi Edition
A render of the proposed bridge.
The bridge that would connect Malé City with Vilimalé, Thilafushi, and Gulheefalhu through the Greater Malé Connectivity Project is expected to be completed in February 2024.
According to the Environmental Impact Assessment report prepared for the Project, construction is scheduled to begin in June 2021. The report says that the project is expected to take 32 months, which would be February 2024.
The work on the bridge would not have been completed after President Solih’s presidential term runs its course in November 2023.
The Solih administration has cited many dates for the beginning of the bridge project. President Solih had previously said that work on the structure of the bridge would begin in 2019 even though the finances for the bridge had not yet come through.
The bridge is being funded by a loan granted by India’s EXIM bank.
The bridge that would connect Malé City, Vilimalé, Thilafushi, and Gulheefalhu will have a length of 6.7 kilometres; and it would be the largest infrastructural project so far seen in the Maldives.
The project had originally been announced by the Yameen administration. High-ranking official of the now-ruling MDP had criticised the projects at the time.
Majlis Speaker Nasheed, the leader of the MDP, had consistently denigrated and dismissed the Yameen administration’s infrastructural projects which include the Sina-Malé Bridge between Malé City and Hulhumalé.