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Govt mulls making railway public limited company

Staff Correspondent
The government is actively consid-ering turning the state-run Bangladesh Railway (BR) into a public limited company (PLC) on suggestions of the Asian Development Bank.
The parliament, however, would take the final decision in this regard on completion of a 44-month study, which began in last October, by a consultant group.
The loss-making railway cannot survive unless it is turned into a business organisation, Communications Secretary Mohammad Mahabubur Rahman told The Daily Star yesterday, adding that the government is seriously working on the proposal to turn the lossmaker into a PLC.
He criticised the railway staffers for yearsof poor service records but said the government would consider that they do not lose their jobs as 'they’re very efficient but lack motivation for pu blic service."
The BR earned Tk 456.31 crore in revenue against Tk 929.61 crore in operational expenditure during 2006-2007 fiscal year, officials said.
In October last year, the government embarked on the $430 million Bangladesh Railway Reform and Improvement Project, to be completed in phases by 2012. The ADB is financing the project on the condition that the railway be corporatised.
The reform agenda also includes modernisation of stations, improvement in services and transparency at all levels.
Pricewaterhouse Coopers India Limited was appointed as consultant for the five-year project and has already started the 44-month study. The firm will submit its report in phases.
It submitted a primary report on lines of business (LOB) on February 28 where it said inadequate recruitment is straining key railway functions.
The government appointed a steering committee with communications secretary at the helm to review the ADB's reform proposals after it signed the deal with the donor agency in last August.
The secretary said the committee has asked the consulting firm to talk to all concerned, especially the existing staffers, before reaching any conclusion.
On a demand for recruiting 4,744 people in the railway, he said job openings in 32 categories arc affecting railway services and occasionally leading to accidents.
According to BR sources, though the railway has 40,264 posts, 31.059 people arc on the staff now. It has only 1,956 railwaymen against 4,166 posts and only 114 gatemen against 365 posts.
"Under the agreement with the ADB. the railway will be a corporatised entity but the government would retain the ownership of it," BR Director General Belayet Hossain told The Daily Star on the reform move.
"But it is still a proposal If the government finds it viable, the parliament will take the final decision in this regard," he added.
With 454 stations, the railway has a route network of 2,835 kilometres stretched over 44 districts.
The BR regularly operates 258 passenger trains and 54 freight trains. It carried 45.8 million people in 2006-2007, about 8 percent of all passengers of the period.