Addu City, Maldives – Mayor of Addu City, Abdulla Sodiq has said that Gan and Hulhumeedhoo will be connected via a submerged crossing.
In a tweet he posted today, Mayor elaborated that the councils vision was to develop bridges and submerged crossings to facilitate connectivity to all districts of Addu City.
Mayor Sodiq further added that fast ferry system, bus and monorail will be used to connect all districts. In a picture attached with the tweet, it illustrates an underwater submerged crossing tunnel linking Gan island to Hulhumeedhoo.
Mayor Sodiq’s recent tweet comes after public uproar to his earlier tweet about introduction of monorail to Addu City. He has previously said that Addu link road will be widened to a four lane highway with provision for monorail in the future.
Mayor also said that the project has already been planned and the changing of the link road near Hankede area is a part of the master connectivity plan. Within the Addu road development project which would be carried under Indian EXIM Banks line of credit, a 1.4 kilometers of new 4 lane detour link road will be built near Hankede bridge.
Sobe had said that in addition to this 1.4 kilometers of the link road, the whole link road starting from Gan island until end of Hithadhoo would be developed to a 4 lane highway in the future.
According to the council, the purpose of changing the link road to exclude the island of Hankede is in order to develop the island as an eco-tourism hub to facilitate in the expansion of tourism activities in the city.
In addition to this, Sobe also discredited PPM candidate competing as the Mayor of Addu City, Mohamed Latheef’s remarks on saying that most of the roads of Addy City being built with Cement Stabilised Base (CSB) layers. Sobe also told that all main roads of Addu City will be developed with asphalt and that CSB layer will be put in smaller roads to safeguard the storm water drainage system until those roads can be paved with asphalt.
The agreement to develop the roads was signed on February 21, 2021 during the Minister of External Affairs of India, Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s visit to Maldives.
The contract was signed between the Ministry of National Planning, Housing & Infrastructure of Maldives and Afcons Infrastructure Limited. It is the first contract to be signed for a project financed under the $800 million Indian Line of Credit.
The construction project of Addu City which will be focusing on designing and building the roads of Addu along with fixing the drainage systems in the city. A second link road is to be constructed with the cumulative road development projects adding up to MVR 1.19 billion. The road development projects are supposed to be completed within 730 days.
