Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Mughal Emperor Akbar ordered the construction of the Shahi Bridge, and the work was completed by Munim Khan between 1564 and 1568. The project took four years to finish, involving an Afghan architect named Afzal Ali who designed the arches and layout.
The Shahi Bridge spans the Gomti River in Jaunpur, connecting the north of the Jaunpur Railway station to the northwest of Zafarabad. It stands as the most significant Mughal structure in the city known as the Shiraz of India.
The 1934 Nepal-Bihar earthquake severely damaged the Shahi Bridge by destroying seven of its arches. The Directorate of Archaeology in Uttar Pradesh placed the bridge on its Protection and Conservation list in 1978 to preserve the structure.
William Hodges documented the bridge in his book Select Views in India, noting the frequent inundations that rose over it. Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem titled Akbar's Bridge which immortalized the structure in the literary canon.
The new parallel bridge was opened on the 28th of November 2006 by Mulayam Singh Yadav, the then Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. This development project cost 128 crore rupees and was designed to alleviate traffic congestion while preserving the historic Shahi Bridge.