Bangladesh’s Water Resources Minister Shahiduddin Chowdhury Anee said on Sunday, October 25, that construction of the proposed Padma Barrage could be inaugurated in January or February 2027.
He spoke after inspecting the proposed project site at Satbaria Kanchan Park in Sujanagar, Pabna. According to the minister, the government expects the project to benefit approximately 70 million people in the country’s southwest. Those figures describe projected benefits rather than outcomes already achieved.
The minister put the estimated cost of the first phase at about Tk 350 billion, with the total project estimated at Tk 500–550 billion. He said work on a second phase would need to begin while the first phase was under way.
Illustrative image of river infrastructure; not the Padma project site.