The BR conundrum

The Bangladesh Railway (BR) makes news, more often than not, for all the wrong reasons. One such headline it has made on page 8 of the last Sunday's issue of the FE. The headline says it all but contention of the news explains why the BR suffers from its endemic malaise. Like most of the organisations in the public sector, the BR has been limping ever since the country's independence. As is the case in the majority of such organisations and establishments, anachronism is the hallmark. The Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL), Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC), Bangladesh Food and Sugar Industries Corporation, Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB), to name just a few, have all proved to be losing concerns.

But why? Their service and products are in high demand and yet they cannot run profitably. Those responsible for overall management and the officers and employees down the rank consider their respective entity a beehive meant for extracting honey. With rare exception, they are top to bottom corrupt and have no love or responsibility for the organisation or establishment they work for. The long saga of corruption in the BR is no different from those of land offices, in power sector, in land telephone connection and customer service, piped gas connection, management of sugar mills as well as in other such establishments. When private cell phone companies are earning whooping profits, the Teletalk Bangladesh Ltd fails not only to earn profit but also provide substandard service. An example of the BRTC throws some light on such developments. While private bus operators add more vehicles to their fleet from their income, the BRTC has relied on subsidies. Once employed, officers and employees take their employment as guaranteed; they feel no urge to take challenges and compete with their rivals. It is the top bosses who have to lead from the front to encourage and inspire officers and employees under them to work hard and earn both profit and reputation.

Unfortunately, this does not happen because of the widespread corruption culture. If the rot takes effect in the head of a fish, the entire body degenerates fast. Apart from such corruption, the BR has long been a victim of a kind of conspiracy in that it was neglected under pressure from the lobbying groups of long-route bus operators. A faulty government policy of far greater investment in developing road communication to the neglect of the mass transportation of railways even led to closure of railway routes and stations. It received reasonably greater attention as late as 2018 when investment in the BR jumped to 106.84 billion from 60.8 billion in its previous year.

Clearly, the BR has been receiving similar or more funds since then, barring 2019 and 2020 — the years the country was wriggling out of the pandemic and its after-effects — for its development projects. Notwithstanding the fresh investment, its revenue income has failed to pick up and it still cannot even bear its routine maintenance cost. This is unacceptable. The same old malaise of irregularities and misuse of funds may have been responsible for this. Comparatively safer, cheaper and more comfortable, a train journey is always preferable to a bus journey. But if the service is poor with disrupted schedules, the train journey is sure to lose its appeal. No doubt, railway needs far greater investment but the expenditure has to be transparent and with the string of accountability attached. The interim government should start the process of such transparency and accountability in expenditure in BR aimed at turning it into a modern and reliable mass transportation service.