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The Bangladesh Railway continues to incur huge losses despite big budgetary allocations over the years.

Despite the implementation of costly mega projects, the passengers are not getting much-improved train services.

Currently, Bangladesh Railway is only earning more than its targets from the sectors of passenger fare and telecom.

On the contrary, the passengers still struggle to get train tickets and travel by train roofs risking their lives during festivals.

Besides, facilities inside the trains and the stations remain minimal and insufficient, while black marketing of tickets continues.

The Bangladesh Railway is failing to reach its targets of earnings in the sectors of carrying goods, parcels, transportation and commercial, estate, scrap, and electricity.

Other special services including the cattle trains and the mango trains are yet to gain popularity.  

After the formation of the railways ministry in 2011, many development projects were taken to rearrange the state-run Bangladesh Railway.

Though the Bangladesh Railway almost always incurred losses, the amount of losses increased in recent years.

Though the government increased train fares twice since 2011 – first in 2012 by 50 to 115 per cent and lastly in 2016 by 7.23 per cent on an average – with promises of improved services, overall services did not improve.

Transportation experts said that using the railway’s non-performing land assets, expanding its container services and introducing different types of commuter trains were the ways to increase the railway’s revenue earnings.

In six fiscal years between FY2018-19 and FY2023-24, the railway’s revenue earning was Tk 9,129 crore against the target of Tk 13,428 crore.

Against the earnings in these fiscal years, the railway’s expenditure was Tk 19,258 crore and the loss was Tk 10,129 crore. 

During the period, the railways ministry got a total budgetary allocation of Tk 90,415 crore.

The total actual expenditure of this budget allocation was Tk 71,764 crore, out of which Tk 54,764 crore or 76.71 per cent was development expenditure.

‘Currently, Bangladesh Railway is earning Tk 1 after spending over Tk 2.5,’ said railways adviser Muhammad Fouzul Kabir Khan.

He said that they had taken initiatives to bring down the ratio between earnings and expenditure to 1: under 2.

Professor Md Shamsul Hoque of the civil engineering department of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology said that the railway implemented different projects following feasibility studies though the railway’s losses continued. 

Shamsul, also specialised in transportation engineering, said that the previous regime focused on different costly development projects without considering the necessary rolling stock and workforce to implement these projects.

The Economic Relations Division under the finance ministry also needs to be more careful while approving projects under loans, he said, and stressed the need to consider whether the projects would be able to return the loan in the future.

Mentioning that huge development had been done in the sector in the past 10 years, he said, ‘Now the railway needs to focus on operation to find out ways to generate revenue from these developments.’

Shamsul emphasised on three issues – using the railway’s non-performing land assets, expanding its container services and introducing different types of commuter trains to facilitate journeys on shorter distances – to increase the railway’s revenue earnings.

In FY2023-24, the railway earned Tk 1,348 crore from passengers’ fares against a target of earning Tk 1,339 crore in the sector.

It earned Tk 154 crore from the telecom sector against a target of earning Tk 140 crore in the same fiscal year.

During the same period, it earned Tk 239 crore from goods carrying sector against a target of Tk 394 crore.

It earned Tk 14 crore from the parcel sector against a target of earning Tk 68 crore and Tk 44 crore was earned from the transportation and commercial sector against a target of Tk 106 crore in the same fiscal year.

The railway earned Tk 69 crore from the estate sector against a target of Tk352 crore, Tk 26 crore from scrap sector against a target of Tk 41 crore, and Tk 27.45 crore from the electricity sector against a target of Tk 27.52 crore.

Adviser Fouzul Kabir Khan said that they had two ways to reduce the gap in the operating ratio – increasing the revenue income and reducing the wastage of money.

Mentioning that the railway is still leasing out its land properties at a very cheap rate, he said that they would increase the lease money and increase other revenue income from different sources including fibre optic.

For reducing the expenditure of the railway, he said that they would check different procurements and other expenses for the railway.  

Fouzul Kabir Khan said that the railway was not profitable in most of the countries though Bangladesh’s railways ministry was monitoring the operating ratio to reduce the gap.

Replying to a question, he said that hiking passenger fares was the easiest way to increase revenue by creating pressure on the people.

‘We will look into that matter too. But, first of all, we need to fix the irregularities at our own homes,’ the adviser added.