Editorial
Slow, rusty trains
What is the management doing?
THE Bangladesh railways, which have for years been performing well below expectations, are now doing even worse, virtually limping with a number of problems. A report published in a leading Bengali daily on April 10 gave a detailed account of how the trains have lost both speed and service quality.
Obviously, a train cannot serve its passengers if it often runs several hours behind schedule. But that is precisely what is happening on many routes, with the passengers bearing the brunt of it all. Trains are no longer the safe and reliable mode of transport, that they once were.
True, railways have been facing stiff competition from other modes of transport, especially the bus with the development of the country's roads network. Yet, it still can hold its own as travelling by train has some marked advantages over journey by road, which is still not safe enough in our context. But the railway authorities have failed to capitalise on it and are actually losing more and more ground due to mismanagement and failure to deliver reasonably good service.
A look into the messy railways would instantly reveal that it is still running in spite of the management, rather than because of it. The railway authorities put the blame on shortage of skilled manpower and engines for the dismal performance. Undoubtedly, it won't be possible to keep the trains in service without engines or locomotive operators. There is even a shortage of stationmasters and booking clerks. We get the impression that nobody is willing to join the railways , though unemployment is a major problem of the country.
Clearly, poor planning and even poorer implementation of whatever plans the railway authorities make have led to a situation where nothing is working smoothly. The railway bosses cannot defend themselves by saying that locomotive operators need both training and experience before they can be appointed. The failure to envisage the situation well before the problem actually cropped up is responsible for the shortage of trained manpower today and the resultant fall in service quality. It is not known what the railway mangers have been doing all these years.
The shortage of train engines has hit freight traffic also, as the railway authorities could not provide two container trains between Dhaka and Chittagong every day as demanded by the shipping companies recently. So, the casualty list includes trade and commerce too.
The railway authorities have to make some determined efforts to recover from the dismal state.
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