Although the KFAED authority had, at the start of the project, rejected the request for funding the approach road, Roads and Highways Department (R&HD) officials said the bridge would lose its meaning without the approach road. Currently a twenty-foot wide road winds its way to link up with the Beri Bandh and Basila.

"We are again writing to the KFAED authority through the ERD seeking financial assistance for the approach road," said a senior engineer of the R&HD requesting anonymity. He added that they only needed to acquire a small area to extend the Satmasjid Road up to Beri Bandh and thus create easy access to the Basila bridge.

"The original master plan shows Satmasjid Road continuing up to Beri Bandh but it was never possible because a powerful politically backed syndicate of land grabbers illegally occupied the area and built a tin-shed market," said an official of the project. Recently the syndicate put up a huge signboard announcing imminent launching of a construction work of a multi-storied commercial-cum-housing project.

"The area is clearly a public land under the ministry of land, I cannot understand how these people could get Rajuk permission to build such a project on a public land," the project official said.

"If this planned high-rise building is constructed on the designated approach road it would be time consuming to demolish it, now is the time for the government to take over the area," said Nurunnabi, a resident of Katashur.

The R&HD officials are hopeful of a positive response from the KFAED. They said anyone would understand how vital it is for the bridge to have a wide approach road for smooth flow of traffic.

"If the approach road is not built, a permanent traffic jam would grip the Mohammadpur area and many people would avoid using the bridge," said an R&HD engineer.

The Tk 49 crore third Buriganga bridge project is scheduled to be completed by 2010. Project engineers said that up to 30 percent of the work has been completed well ahead of schedule. But the work is currently passing through a hurdle due to complications arising from further land acquisition.

Once completed the bridge would connect a vast area in Keraniganj linking Mawa in the south and Savar road in the north. With the start of the construction work, prices of land in Keraniganj have rocketed. It is expected that a huge volume of traffic, including heavy goods vehicle, will use the vital link between Dhaka and the southern and northern parts of the country.