Bangladesh Railway is set to launch a business of leasing out its highly expensive lands for investment in public and private partnership (PPP) projects in big cities, including Dhaka and Chattogram. As part of this move, a decision has been taken to demolish the historic Kamalapur railway station in the capital.
Sources say, a new railway station will be built on the north side of the present Kamalapur station, covering Shahjahanpur railway colony and adjacent areas. In fact, the project from the airport to Kamalapur was taken up in 2018. Under the project, hotels, medical colleges, commercial complexes and residential apartments are to be constructed.
According to a news report published on Sunday, the railway has already identified about 200 acres of undisputed land for investment, and private companies will construct the infrastructure of different ‘multi-model’ hub projects with a view to raising railway’s income. A Japanese company has made preliminary designs for the ‘multi-model’ project around the Kamalapur railway station.
Meanwhile, transport experts and some policy level railway officials think that the main priority of the organisation should be improving the quality of passenger service. Besides, the railway authorities could have increased their income by transporting containers and freights. In this context, they mentioned that the Indian Railway has become successful by adopting this policy.
Sources at the railway say that corruption, unplanned project implementation and lack of proper management are the main reasons for the loss incurred by the railway despite huge investments. Under these circumstances, it is not justified to take up business projects using their costly land.
As reported, the railway has allocated lands for the implementation of different development projects in the past. But it gets only Tk 1.5 to 2 crore in return per month. This is because the officials in charge amass several times the money that the railway earns from leasing its land.
It is to be noted that the government has spent nearly Tk 75,000 crore in the last 11 years on railway’s development. Even with raising the passenger fare and freight transport tariff twice in 2012 and 2016, the operating loss of the railway was nearly Tk 200 crore in the last fiscal year.
The railway authorities should tell investors in clear terms that they will not bear liability if the land projects fail amidst the crowd of hotels, medical colleges and commercial complexes. Otherwise, it will amount to gifting the land to the investors who might create more burden of losses.
