Editorial
Helping railway to its rightful place
Action should commence immediately
It is impossible to explain why the railway, that was perhaps the cheapest and most widely used a mode of transport in Bangladesh along with the riverine system, for both passenger travel and transportation of goods, has been allowed to come to an almost moribund state. This used to be also not only the surest but the safest mode of movement.
Given that this was the largest bulk carrier at one time not so long ago, it is sad to see the sector given the short shrift. And road travel, that at one time well nigh replaced train travel, has neither been able to absorb the pressure of bulk transportation of passenger or good for very obvious reasons. There has been hardly a mile of new tracks laid since Independence; on the contrary, a large number of railway routes have been discontinued and many stations closed due to shortage of manpower.
It is regrettable that while in other countries the railway has been consistently reinvigorated, ours has been set on a path of progressive decay, caused, among other things by bad management, lack of planning and of course resource and manpower crunch. And that would need gargantuan efforts by the ministry and indeed other departments of the government to resuscitate it from its present state.
However, amidst this rather unhappy situation our hopes are somewhat rekindled by the railway minister's remarks that he made at a seminar recently on revamping the railways, that various projects amounting to 24,000 crore taka is in hand to regain the lost glory of the system.
While we commend the minister for his zeal and earnestness, we feel that the recovery of the railways will have to be done in a long term, sustained manner, and it should start immediately. The fact that there is less than two years left of the present regime should not deter the government from undertaking long-term schemes. We believe the railways can be placed on a firmer footing within the time at the disposal of the government.
However, notwithstanding the investment of large sums of money on the infrastructure, the underlying issue remains that of the quality of service including punctuality, which will go a long way in regaining the old glory of the railways.
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