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Near collapse for railway

M Abul Kalam Azad
Repeated attacks on railway infrastruc-tures during the recent antigovernment movement have pushed rail communications to the verge of collapse as the number of passengers and the revenue earnings of the service have drastically dropped.
Official records show nine trains were derailed killing at least three
passengers and injuring a few hundred more in at least 288 attacks during the 16 days of blockades and hartals enforced by the BNP-led opposition alliance between November 26 and December 16.
"The damage railway has suffered is estimated to be no less than Tk 10 crore," Abu Taher, director general of Bangladesh Railway, told The Daily Star.
On a normal day, 28 intercity and
35 mail trains leave from Kamalapur railway station but 10 to 12 trains had to be cancelled every day during the three spells of blockades prior to the one beginning this morning.
On an average, around 1.8 lakh passengers travel on trains daily from which railway earns aboutTk 1.6 crore. The figures, however, slumped almost to half during the blockades, railway
FROM PAGE 1 officials said.
For instance, railway earns around Tk 63 lakh by carrying 45,000 passengers in Dhaka division alone on a normal day. The revenue earning came down to Tk 35 lakh while the number of passengers fell to 23,000 during the blockade days.
Besides, schedules have collapsed due to the attacks as trains now move at an average speed of 30-40 kilometres per hour doubling the journey time and adding to the woes of passengers.
Despite preventive measures like increasing security patrols on tracks and trains and deploying Ansar personnel, attacks continue to wreak havoc on the railway which once used to be known as the safest mode of public transport.
During the three bouts of blockade, miscreants set fire to tracks and rail bridges at 85 points, ripped off tracks and fishplates at 64 points and halted 91 trains midway across the country.
Nine engines and 22 coaches were dam-
aged in the derailments caused by these subversive acts, triggering a severe shortage of locomotives required to operate trains on different routes.
The two forces responsible for railway security - Government Railway Police (GRP) and Railway Nirapatta Bahini (RNB) - together have 3,549 personnel which, under the current circumstances, is clearly not enough to safeguard the vast network that includes 2,835-kilometre tracks and 456 stations.
Worried by the attacks, the authorities have already deployed 8328 Ansar personnel.
"We have identified 1,041 points on 17 important routes as vulnerable and deployed eight Ansar personnel at each of the points which include railway stations, bridges and tracks," said Abu Taher.
Members of Border Guard Bangladesh would also be deployed if the existing measures failed to check attacks, said the railway DG.
Earlier this year, railway incurred a loss of about Tk 26 crore due to attacks by Jamaat-Shibir men after their leader Delawar Hossain Sayedee was sentenced to death for war crimes.
RAILWAY NOT ALO NE
Besides the railway sector, Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC) has been heavily hit by the recent blockades and hartals enforced by the opposition combine.
At least 153 buses of state-run BRTG were vandalised while 32 were torched inflicting a loss of Tk 12 crore, according to the official records.
The corporation also lost Tk 10 crore in revenue as it could not run most of its 1400 buses during these opposition programmes.
Blockaders felled a huge number of trees, mostly the ones on the roadsides, to put obstacles on roads and highways across the country. Although the forest department could not show any specific data, it said a few thousand trees worth several crore taka were knocked down.
Blockaders also either vandalised or torched at least 10 regional offices of the Election Commission in different places of the country.
A number of police vehicles were vandalised and torched as well during the blockades and hartals but police did not give any details.