A parliamentary watchdog has asked the government to switch focus to building a broad gauge-based railway network instead of investing money for the existing metre guage tracks.
The Awami League government has invested over Tk8,407crore in the last five years for promoting metre gauge tracks.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Railway Ministry at its maiden meeting yesterday said the government could not turn Bangladesh Railway (BR) into a safe and reliable entity and reap the benefits of globalisation if it promoted metre gauge tracks, abandoned by most countries including India.
Being a signatory to the 14,080km Trans-Asian Railway (TAR) network that stretchedfrom Singapore to Turkey, Bangladesh must convert its track into broad gauge to get connected with the global railway link through India’s board gauge network.
The TAR connectivity will enter Bangladesh from India and cross through the neighbour’s northeastern states. The broad gaugetrack can carry twice the number of passengers at one and a half times cheaper cost than metre gauge lines.
“Almost all countries in the world have abandoned the unsafe and unreliable metre gauge long ago, but our network is still metre gauge-based. We have to keep pace with the world and turn the network into broad gauge,” ABM Fazle Karim Chowdhury, chairman of the parliamentary body, told the Dhaka Tribune after the meeting at the parliament building yesterday.
He said: “We cannot reap the benefits of TAR unless the tracks are converted into broad gauge.”
Md Ali Asghar, Mizanur Rahman, Sirajul Islam Mollah, Mohammad Noman, Yeasin Ali and FatemaJohra– the other members of the committee who attended the meeting – also gave consents to the recommendations.
Railway Minister MazibulHoque, who also agreed, said conversion would need huge investment although he did not specify any figure.
The issue of converting the tracks came up when the committee had been discussing the recent derailment of the metre-gauge Drutojan Express on the Jamunabridge.
Officialstold the meeting that the train, which unexpectedly accelerated because of strong wind, would not have derailed if the track was broad gauge.
One-metre wide metre gauge tracks can be turned into dual gauge, on which both metre gauge and 1.76-metre broad gauge trains can run, by setting up an additional rail beside the existing track.
BR has been setting up a new 64km metre gauge track on the Tongi-Bhairab route at a cost of over Tk2,037crorefor smootheningtraffic on the Dhaka-Sylhet and Dhaka-Chittagong routes.
According to a paper presented at the meeting, BR has been also implementing seven projects costing over Tk2,800crore for procuring 70 metre gauge locomotives and 864 coaches, wagons and carriages.
Official figures show that the length of BR’s tracks is 2,877km,of which 1,808km is metre gauge, 660km broad gauge and 409km dual gauge.
Welcoming the recommendation, TA Chowdhury, a former BR director general, told the Dhaka Tribune that: “One of the major problems for the BR is the mixed nature of its tracks. We should have a uniform network for ensuring seamless journey from one corner of the country to another.
“We are a signatory to the TAR. Accordingly, we have to turn the tracks into broad gauge to get connected to India,” he said.
The former DG explained that often the BR could not run broad gauge trains because there were not enough compatible locomotives and engines.
“If the tracks are made uniform, all locomotives could be used for all types of carriages,” he said.
The UN Economic and Social Commission for the Asia Pacificis sponsoringthe TARnetwork that connects Singapore with Turkey through South Asia.
