ANTI-CORRUPTION Commission has found high prevalence of corruption in the Bangladesh Railway where most of the officials and employees are allegedly involved in corruption and irregularities. According to anti-graft watchdog’s findings, corruption usually takes place in the processes of procurements, ticket selling, line management, tender and recruitment practices and railway’s land management. In a one-year long investigation, the ACC has also detected 10 methods of corruption and irregularities in the BR. To check the corrupt practices, the ACC has made 15 recommendations.
ACC has also unearthed that a huge amount of corruption takes place in the process of leasing out railway land and in transfer of employees. Due to the large-scale corruption, several hundred acres of railway land have already been occupied by outsiders while some officials and employees of the department illegally built houses and other structures on the railway land. ACC also has detected corruption and irregularities in the process of rehabilitation and modernisation of the railway signalling system. Even, construction of double-line, single-line and dual-gauge rail tracks was, too, found to be taking place amid corruption.
An ACC Commissioner on Tuesday handed over the investigation report to Railway Minister to take necessary measures. We know corruption is everywhere. Each and every government department is now loaded with financial corruption and other irregularities. In fact, it’s impossible to find out any office which is not merging with corruption. In particular, corruption in BR is widespread and long-standing. The government loses a large amount of money for that reason every year.
We must say unchecked corruption has made the country as one of the most corrupted countries in the world. Though railway is the major mood of public transportation, we didn’t find any effective measure to stop the bad practice by none of the successive governments. Rather, corrupts have been encouraged by the ruling elites with awarding promotion and other facilities.
When road transport and riverine transport sectors couldn’t meet the demand of people due to huge rush and other shortcomings, at that time the railway sector should come forward to ensure a smooth transportation to the common people.
