WHILE railways are regarded as among the most cheap, comfortable and safe communications systems all around, unfortunately in Bangladesh, the railways are loosing its track on account of mismanagement and corruption. A Sunday report of an English daily said, at least 300 railway bridges are in need of urgent rehabilitation though the railway authority has so far held back the work because of shortage of funds. Railways have by this time emerged as a most unsafe way to communicate. Incidents of similar accidents occurred in a couple of weeks around the country. The rehabilitation projects that have stumbled due to fund shortage are causing further anxiety among the experts as well as the passengers who are often victims of rail accidents.
According to the railway officials, the bridges in East Zone of Bangladesh Railway (BR) especially require rehabilitation as most of its rail tracks are meter gauge. The cause that the railway engineers emphasize on is the recently bought locomotives. The locomotives are heavier than the capacity of the existing bridges, and therefore the authorities need to either rehabilitate the meter gauge lines or construct broad gauge lines on them. The estimated cost of rehabilitation in the Detailed Project Proposal (DPP) in 2012 was Tk 133 crore. Railway’s planning department sent a letter in last week to the East Zone to prepare another DPP with the same proposal. By this time, the number of bridges that need rehabilitation has increased with a corresponding rise of cost as well.
However, nobody in the Rail Ministry seems to be worried about the recent irregularities, insincerity and unruliness while taking decisions on purchase and other important issues. Everybody here seems more interested to occupy the post and earn gains. Regrettably, the authorities are yet to develop a reliable safety system. It should be mentioned here that the rail body is run by 34,168 regular employees on a 2,855 kilometers route. Experts assign man-power shortage as another important cause of the poor show.
What the railways need is to modernize trains, install a reliable signalling system and induct other equipment necessary for running trains on time and make the train journey safe and comfortable. Most importantly, rail bridges must be rehabilitated first on an emergency basis or else the entire track may collapse if any bridge gives in. The railway personnel have to be trained adequately on recruitment and before joining their duties. The government should upgrade our railways to a reliable mode of transport. Railway needs complete and thorough overhauling which would enable people to go on a secure, modern, reliable, fast and comfortable journey.
