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The country's first road-cum-rail bridge over the Jamuna will revert to its original four-lane road bridge 26 years after its inauguration as train operations through the 4.8-km bridge will end soon.
The development comes as the Bangladesh Railway has already completed a dedicated rail bridge over the same river and operated a trial run successfully.
The Jamuna Bridge, which was later named as Bangabandhu Jamuna Bridge, was built deviating from its original design by adding rail service at the last minute.
The then longest multipurpose bridge was inaugurated in June 1998.
Following the test run over the newly built railway bridge, sources said, the Bangladesh Bridge Authority (BBA) has been planning to remove all tracks from Jamuna Bridge to convert the track area into roadway.
It plans to invite an international tender to carry out the bridge's road work through a feasibility study soon after the termination of train operations.
As Jamuna Bridge has been under operation following cracks on it since 2006, the BBA is considering the need for an international firm for the conversion work, according to the sources.
The bridge is 18.5 metres in width, which is standard for a four-lane road. But its width shrank for installing a single rail track on 6.3 metres.
The old bridge gets 18,000-20,000 vehicles every day for its strategic location linking between eastern and western parts of the country.
The bridge also bears importance for its location within the regional corridor, including Asian Highway and SASEC.
BBA chief engineer Quazi Mohammad Ferdous said apart from removing rail track, the bridge might need some work like seismic vibration test.
"The entire plan of the bridge's renovation, restoration or reformation could be finalised after the feasibility study," he told the FE.
Since assuming charge from the Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge Authority, the BBA has long been maintaining the rail-cum-road bridge.
Since inception, the bridge has been earning toll money to the tune of Tk 10 million annually from the Bangladesh Railway for using the bridge.
But the BBA lowered the speed limit of trains to 20 kph after a crack first developed in box girder in 2006, which experts considered damaging for the country's first expensive bridge.
The crack work was retrofitted by a Chinese company through using a carbon fibre reinforced polymer technique in 2013.
Due to slow rail movement amid vulnerability of the bridge, the then Awami League government initiated to build a dedicated rail bridge amid demand from various quarters.
The new bridge location was fixed upstream of its predecessor. It was finally completed last December with the financial support of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
The original Jamuna Bridge was built at a cost of $962 million with the financial assistance of multiple foreign donors.
Mr Ferdous, however, said the actual cost of the repair or renovation work of the Jamuna road bridge would be assessed after the feasibility study.
Proposals would be sought from the country's technical universities, including BUET, CUET, KUET and MIST, to do the work, he added.