The bridges, under the programme to construct 1210 rural bridges island-wide, once completed, will benefit over six million people in 15,000 villages of 100 Secretarial Divisions.  It will also help to reduce the gap between towns and villages thus opening the door for rapid rural development through economic progress with improvements to quality of life of rural villagers. In Sri Lanka 75 percent of its population lives in villages and bridges play an important role in their day to day lives.is now progressing

According to Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa,  road development through Maga Neguma programme has contributed immensely  to enhance the economic levels of villagers’ while the new bridges would give a boost to their  agricultural economies.Under the first phase, construction of 210 rural bridges out of 1,210 are being progressing steadily and is expected to be fully completed within this year.

Under the second phase 1,000 more bridges will be completed and vested with the people by the middle of next year. All these bridges have been constructed in steel without arches to withstand the vagaries of the weather.

Already 100 bridges have been fully completed under Phase one.