During the 2013 presidential campaign, the then PPM candidate Abdullah Yameen announced that he plans to construct a bridge between Hulhumale’ and Male’. He was faced with immediate criticism from MDP and other parties as well.
At first, MDP said that constructing a bridge is impossible and that it was just another campaign promise to fool the people. Fast forward to 2017 and now we see that 25 percent of the bridge has been already completed. Those who said that the bridge cannot be constructed now say that a bridge between Male’ and Hulhumale’ is useless. Such people say that the government should focus on “more important” things. Yet, they fail to explain what these “more important” things are.
So, let’s get back to the original question. Why is a bridge so important? Is it just so that people can go for joy rides between the two cities? Or is it just to claim that we have bridge in Maldives? It is unlikely that most the people in Maldives have ever thought of how useful and important this bridge is going to be to the country.
As we all know, one major problem we face in the capital of Male’ is scarcity of land. Thus, land is quite expensive in Male’. Since most residents of Male’ are not land owners, those who reside in Male’ have to rent. Due to the high demand for apartments in Male’ the rent in Male’ is extremely high.
Hulhumale’ was reclaimed and developed to solve this problem. To provide land for more housing. Yet, Hulhumale’ and Male’ are physically disconnected. Since Male’ is the administrative capital of Maldives most of the government offices, schools and other important institutions are in Male’. Which means even if people live in Male’ they should go to Male’ for various reasons. Due to the absence of a physical link between Male’ and Hulhumale’ many people hesitate to relocate to Hulhumale’.
The government has started ambitious housing projects which will construct over 20,000 housing units out of which 15,000 are social housing units. This will roughly accommodate around 100,000 people. Ideally, the plan is to attract residents of Male’ and people from other small islands to Hulhumale’. But as stated before the absence of a physical link between Male’ and Hulhumale’ will be a huge challenge. To solve that, the government decided to construct the bridge.
This means that, a lot of people who are renting in Male’ can move to Hulhumale’ once housing units are completed. With the bridge completed, they will no longer have to worry about taking the ferry. So, the bridge plays a huge role in this project. In addition, the supply of 20,000 housing units will naturally decrease the rent in Male’. As of now the rent is so high because the supply is significantly less than the demand.
So, the bridge is indeed vital for this to happen. It is just not a useless structure that is being constructed so that President Yameen can use it to get more votes in the next election. Whoever is the president in the coming years, the bridge will be a very useful piece of infrastructure for the development of Maldives.
Why is a bridge so important between Hulhumale’ and Male’?
