A team of nation builders

Carriages being built (left) and ready for delivery (right) at the SEL and ABE Consortium workshop at Syedpur. The photos were taken on Tuesday.. PHOTO: STAR

At an abandoned coal-fired power house of government owned Syedpur Railway Workshop, they have built 37 carriages and power cars in last two years and saved about 74 crore taka of the national exchequer. They build both meter gauge and broad gauge carriages.

The work is being done under the leadership of SEL and ABE Consortium. Shefin Enterprise Limited (SEL) and Arean Builders Enterprise (ABE) joined hands to form the consortium.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

The consortium got the work order for constructing the 37 carriages following a Bangladesh Railway tender floated on September 11, 2001.

It delivered the carriages except a power car five months ahead of schedule. The power car will be delivered soon.

Being satisfied, the government in December last year ordered for more 10 meter gauge carriages.

The SEL and ABE carriages are as good as imported ones, some railway officials said when contacted.

The 37 include eight 'first class' carriages, 24 'second class' carriages and five power cars, all with 14 years' warranty and free repair for 18 months.

A 'first class' carriage costs about Tk 35.28 lakh, a 'second class' carriage Tk 33. 39 lakh and a power car (used to supply electricity in a train) costs Tk 50.88 lakh.

Electrical Engineer Abdur Rahim said the 10 newly ordered meter gauge carriages include two air-conditioned Shovon chair coaches costing Tk one crore three lakh, four Shovon chair coaches costing Tk one crore seven lac one dining car with a prayer room costing Tk 21 lac and a guard van costing Tk 23. These will be delivered in June this year.

The production cost will come down gradually if certain disadvantages are removed, Corporate Manager Khondkar Nazrul Islam of the consortium told this correspondent during a visit on Tuesday.

Electricity cost is very vital. "The government workshop gets it at Tk 1.50 per unit but we buy it from the government workshop (Syedpur Railway Workshop) at Tk 9 per unit", Islam said.

Supervisor Abdul Aziz said they construct carriages on old trolleys (trolley means the lower part of a rail carriage with steal wheels), supplied by Bangladesh Railway.

All materials including heavy steel plates are locally procured. This will help growth of backward linkage industries, Aziz said.

Mentionably, the Syedpur Railway Workshop stopped carriage manufacture in 1993 showing loss. Only repair work is done there and carriages are being imported since then on the plea that those are better.

But some sources said the carriages imported from Denmark in 1995 were well decorated internally but not stronger and long-lasting than locally manufactured ones.

An engineer at the government workshop said SEL and ABE has proved that railway carriages of international standard can be manufactured in the country at lesser cost.

About 200 including seven officials and engineers are working at the SEL and ABE workshop. All are either retired or relieved from the government workshop on 'golden handshake' programme.

Corporate Manager Khondkan Nazrul Islam, also a retired railway official, said cheap labour in Syedpur is their special advantage.

Workers Hamid, Mofizuddin, Mazarul and Hanif said they are very happy working in the factory. All in the workshop work sincerely, they said.