Progress on the GMC project

After the long wait, it appears that the Greater Male’ Connectivity Project is finally headed towards a positive direction as major developments are being made in the Villimale’ bridge project. 

The official field was signed for this project on August 2022, during President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih’s official visit to India, and with this signing people expected significant works of the bridge to be completed by the start of 2023.

This assumption was heavily based on a press statement that was given on June 2022 by Afcons Infrastructure Limited, the company responsible for the construction of the bridge. Along with this, Afcons also revealed that they increased the workforce for the project from 88 engineers and 500 foreign labourers to 164 engineers and 1,227 foreign labourers, which again increased the hopes and chances of the project going according to plan and getting completed on track.

However, things kept going wrong one after the other from the moment the project took off, and many people lost faith in the possibility that this project would be completed on time. The first red flag for many was the fact that there was no visible progress on the project, even by the end of 2022.

Soon after speculations were made, the Maldivian Government pushed back the timeline for the project to be completed by the end of 2023. This, however, was not the only complication that this project faced as headlines were filled with one accident after the other occurring with the project. One involved a fire incident that led to the death of one worker and the other being one of the bridge construction vessels grounding on the reef of Villimale’ causing major damages to the reef.

And now, after all the speculations and doubts surrounding the bridge, some progress is finally being reported in regard to this project. The bridge project manager Mohamed Jinan revealed that the casting of the bridge's structure or deck has already started at the site. Additionally, he also noted that the work on the parts to be placed in the sea and the beach are already being carried out in the Gulhifalhu area. 

A total of eight pillars are currently under construction with two of them being from the Male’ side of the project while six are from the Villimale area. With the works finally progressing, it is estimated that the first segment of the project will finally come to an end at the end of this year and progress on the bridge can finally now be spotted from the Villimale’ side!