Insufficient workforce in railway
Bangladesh Railway has been suffering from acute manpower shortage and lack of initiative to fill the vacuum, partly due to administrative negligence and partly due to legal complexities.
The number of vacant posts is 15,452. The vacant first class portfolios are 96 out of 548, the vacant second class posts are 409 out of 1356, the unfilled third class posts are 7210 out of 21,876 and the vacant fourth class posts are 7,737 out of 16,484. With it, missing of fishplates and fish bolts, backdated signaling system, closure of stations one after another and absence of skilled hands sound a note of the railway holocaust someday or the other if the whole administration is not reformed drastically.
In addition, cases filed with the courts over recruitment procedure have made it almost impossible to fill the vacuum posts. The railway ministry should take urgent initiative to settle the issues.
The railway jobs are technical and quasi-technical. No body regardless of his educational qualification will be able to discharge his duties if he is not imparted necessary training. So, every one should take the matter seriously, not lightly, if he wants to protect Bangladesh Railways. From the British rule in India, Bengal Railway was divided into fiive divisions namely Paksey, Lalmonirhat, Dhaka, Bhairob Bazar and Chittagong. The Bangladesh government in 1995 demarcated the railway into two zones-East and West. The headquarters of the West zone comprising Paksey and Lalmonirhat divisions is at Rajshahi while the headquarters of the East Zone consisting of Dhaka, Bhairob Bazar and Chittagong divisions is at Dhaka. The impact of the latest administrative step has not been good at all.
Train accidents have been almost regular affairs, snapping the railway communication for several hours at every accident, to the untold miseries of the passengers.
Mohammad Hashem
Dhaka
