Badrul Ahsan :
The fate of 31 development projects of Bangladesh Railways (BR) has become uncertain following cancellation of deals of these projects as no visible progress was seen in five years since signing of the agreements, official sources said.
Bangladesh Railway (BR) in a recent order has cancelled 31 out of 43 deals that were signed with different foreign companies in the last five years but there was no visible progress in implementation.
“Excepting two, all the deals were signed with Chinese companies. They had shown interest in implementing the projects, which were taken up on the basis of their proposals,” a high official of BR told The New Nation on Thursday preferring anonymity.
He added, “We have taken the decision to do away with these deals having found no visible progress in
their execution after a long time of signing of the memorandums of understanding (MoUs), although the sector badly needed up-gradation and expansion.”
Purchase of broad-gauge and meter-gauge coaches, construction of rail bridge over Jamuna river, Dhaka-Comilla elevated cord line, Dhiroshram Inland Depot and rail-cum-road bridge over the Karnaphuli, introducing automated signalling system in railway’s western zone, improvement of railway ticketing system and establishment of rail link between Dohazari and Myanmar through Ramu and Cox’s Bazar were among the projects. However, it was found that the BR had further signed fresh MoUs with some other Chinese companies despite the fact that the earlier companies from the same country had disappeared from the scene after the signing of previous deals.
The BR officials said, among the new projects, progress could be made only on those projects that get assurance from two development partners — the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
The ADB recently assured of providing support for buying 264 broad-gauge and meter-gauge coaches along with 150 carriages.
It also confirmed US$1.0 billion for funding the railway-sector development that includes establishing Dohazari-Myanmar rail link via Ramu and Cox’s Bazar.
Asked why so many MoU accords were signed even against a single project and despite getting no response from the companies after a year or more, the officials blamed scarcity of funds for the drawbacks.
“The sector needs billions of taka to upgrade its existing lines and services,” said another official, citing the Padma rail project which itself needs more than Tk 200 billion. The BR has now 39 ongoing projects for which Tk 54.10 billion has been allocated in the current fiscal year (2015-16). Though the budget for the railway sector has been on the increase during the last five years, the officials, however, said they get lower than the needed allocation during the revised annual development programme (ADP). During the last fiscal, the railway received Tk 34.49 billion against an allocation of Tk 43.15 billion. “It is still hard to meet the demand of the BR with the budget, which led the authorities to look for alternative funds,” said the official, preferring not to be quoted.
He, however, did not deny the fact of political pressure from the high ups to sign the deals despite observing that any of these projects have hardly seen the light of day.
It is a common practice by the Chinese companies to sign unsolicited MoU in the case of getting any work under government-to-government arrangement, he informed.
