The 22.76km-long, six-lane mega bridge between Kachchi Dargah and Bidupur across the Ganga is still in a limbo though its foundation stone was laid in August 2015 and construction work was inaugurated on January 31, 2016.

Though the Rs 4,988-crore bridge is still in the conceptualising stage and work is yet to begin on the ground, deputy chief minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, also the road construction minister, has a different take.

"We were supposed to acquire 330 acres for the bridge of which 186 acres or around 60 per cent has been acquired and handed over to the contractors so that they could begin their work. The bridge will be completed by 2020," Tejashwi said.

Tejashwi was speaking in the Legislative Council while replying to a question by senior BJP leader Mangal Pandey, who asserted that more than a year had passed since the construction work was launched and the much-needed bridge project was certain to be delayed.

However, a source in the department said the zero date from which the construction time will be calculated is January 16, 2017, because the contractor for the project was formally appointed or given the appointment order on that date.

The greenfield bridge is being funded by a loan of around Rs 3,000 crore by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), while the Bihar government if paying Rs 1,988 crore. It will be constructed in "engineering, procurement, construction" (EPC) mode through a joint venture of South Korean company Daewoo Engineering and Construction Company Limited and Larsen & Toubro. The length of the main bridge will be 9.76km while the approach road will be of 13km.

"A lot remains to be done. The contractors are yet to submit detailed design of the bridge, which needs to be approved by PMA Engineering, the engineers of the project. Actual execution of the bridge will begin only after then," the source said.

A danger of cost escalation looms large as time passes and if that happens, either the central government will have to approach ADB again or the state government will have to dig into its meagre resources. Around 40 per cent land for the bridge still remains to be acquired.

Senior BJP leader and former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi said on Monday: "We have been the government from 2005 to 2013 in Bihar and seeing the tardy pace of progress on Kachchi Dargah (Patna district) - Bidupur (Vaishali district), we are certain that it will face cost escalation. It is not a good thing for a state like Bihar."