🇧🇩 Bangladesh Railway (1 Viewer)

[Bilal9]

Contract inked to buy 200 carriages for railway
Staff Correspondent 21 May, 2024, 00:31
View attachment 6019

The railways authorities on Monday inked a contract with an India-based manufacture and supply company to procure 200 broad gauge carriages for the Bangladesh Railway to improve communications in the country's southern region.

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At a ceremony held at the Rail Bhaban in the capital the Bangladesh Railway and RITES Limited, India, signed the contract under a project titled 'Procurement of 200 Broad Gauge Passenger Carriages for Bangladesh Railway'.

In the signing of the contract, project director Md Zaidul Islam and RITES Limited executive director Rajeev Chaudhary represented Bangladesh Railway and the Indian company respectively.

The contract price for these carriages is Tk 1,205.54 crore.

While I applaud the decision to buy broad-gauge passenger carriages, the decision to buy them from India (RITES) was fool-hardy and wrong.

We should have bought these from Indonesia, given past trouble-free record of Indonesian rail-carriage products and the exact opposite with Indian-made products.

Moreover - the incumbent religious-fanatic govt. in India is openly hostile and and inimical to the interest of Bangladesh and Bangladeshis everywhere, both in word and in deeds. There is absolutely no reason to encourage their behavior by supporting Indian products and imports into Bangladesh to the amount of 1200 crore.

BR people and ministers are as corrupt as ever.

 

[Saif]

Govt shouldn’t let train services operation out to private hands

THIS is a good piece of news that the railway authorities, which run keeping to the Railways Act 1890, are updating the legislation understandably to keep pace with the changed context of the modern world...

www.newagebd.net

Govt shouldn't let train services operation out to private hands
24 May, 2024, 00:00

THIS is a good piece of news that the railway authorities, which run keeping to the Railways Act 1890, are updating the legislation understandably to keep pace with the changed context of the modern world. But what appears worrying about this is that, as New Age reported on May 23, the authorities are incorporating a provision to let private companies own rolling stocks to carry passengers and goods. The Bangladesh Railway, keeping to the provision, would allow private companies, as the draft of the law says, to use the railway line, the signalling system and other infrastructure for the operation of train services. While there are issues of concern in all this, what is further worrying is that the law would apply to the trial of the employees of the private companies in the event of any breach of the law, but the law stipulates no further action if the private companies would take punitive action against the employees of the private companies standing in breach of the law. What yet remains a matter of worry is that the provision that the authorities are planning to incorporate only constitutes a pointer to the failure of the authorities who are willing to let train services operation out to private entities as they fail to run the services properly.

To read the rest of the news, please click on the link above.​

 

[Saif]

Railway off track

A whopping Tk 1.22 lakh crore was poured into Bangladesh Railway for its development over the last 16 years, but the agency still faces a crippling crisis brought by ageing locomotives, carriages, and a shortage of staff due to what experts say are poorly planned and delayed projects.

www.thedailystar.net

Railway off track
Despite Tk 1.22 lakh crore allocation in 16 years, BR struggles to expand services

A whopping Tk 1.22 lakh crore was poured into Bangladesh Railway for its development over the last 16 years, but the agency still faces a crippling crisis brought by ageing locomotives, carriages, and a shortage of staff due to what experts say are poorly planned and delayed projects.

More than half the locomotives, carriages and freight wagons are over 20 years old, which affects railway's reliability.

Railway's fleet of 318 locomotives is far smaller than needed and 43 percent percent of it is over 40 years old. The shortage is so severe that the state-run transport agency has not been able to launch two new trains named and approved by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in December last year.

The crisis is only going to deepen because no new locomotive is likely to arrive in at least the next three years, officials said.

The Dhaka-Jashore rail line via the Padma Bridge is set to open in July, but BR is not likely to be able to fully utilise the expensive infrastructure due to lack of staff and carriages.

In 2023, the BR opened four new routes with a combined length of over 250km, but there is not enough trains to operate on the tracks.

Requesting anonymity, several BR officials said the government's main focus in recent years has been expansion of lines while procurement and maintenance of trains were neglected.

Since most of the BR's workshops and loco sheds are very old and lack staff, the regular maintenance and repair jobs take longer than usual, and the standard of work is subpar.

Amid Covid-19 pandemic and a few years prior to that, the BR suspended operations of at least 99 local, commuter and mail trains due to shortage of locomotives, carriages and staff. Very few of the services resumed after the pandemic.

Currently BR is implementing 32 projects of which deadline for 22 have been extended at least once. Some of the other 10 projects are also running behind schedule, BR documents show.

Deadlines for some projects were extended by over 10 years.

To read the rest of the news, please click on the link above.​