Railway needs a major change to improve services

It is quite unfortunate that Bangladesh Railway continues to incur huge losses despite receiving massive investments from the government over the years. According to a report published in this daily, the government has increased its funding for both the operation and development of the railway, but the agency has not been able to make any profit because of poor services, corruption, and lack of proper management of its assets. According to a document of the railways ministry, the transport agency incurred a loss of Tk 2,086.70 crore in the 2019-20 fiscal year, up from Tk 1,751 crore in the previous year. And as per data cited in the Bangladesh Railway Information Book-2020, the agency has not made any profit since FY2008-09.

While the pandemic may have played a role in reducing its profit margin in the last two years—as the number of railway passengers decreased significantly during this time—the fact that it has not made any profit since 2008 points to other underlying factors that may have brought this organisation to the current situation. The Daily Star published several reports about the inefficiency of its management in the past few years. Only last month, we published a report on the poor implementation of the majority of its public- and foreign-funded projects. Many such projects, undertaken to improve its overall service, have been facing uncertainty as those could not be implemented within the set deadline and budget.

The question is: What needs to be done to make this organisation profitable and to improve its services? A meeting held by the ministry recently came up with some important suggestions which should be implemented on a priority basis. They recommended that the railway increase its income by operating more freight, container, and commuter trains. Another suggestion was checking corruption and other irregularities. Recovering the illegally grabbed railway land was also mooted at the meeting.

We think if the authorities are sincere, it will not be hard for them to address all these issues. The railway has enough funds to improve its network across the country and increase the number of freight and passenger trains. Checking corruption will, however, need sincere efforts by all concerned as well as greater monitoring by the government. And recovering its illegally grabbed land will give the agency the scope to use it for commercial purposes, by which it can earn crores of taka. But serious efforts will be needed to do so. Last but not the least, the efficiency of its officials must be increased to improve its overall services.