[🇧🇩] Bangladesh Railway

[Saif]

Railway keeps incurring loss despite big allocations

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

www.newagebd.net

Railway keeps incurring loss despite big allocations
Shahin Akhter 22 June, 2025, 00:11

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.​

 

[Saif]

Bangladesh Railway’s service woes persist

Its mismanaged system needs more than investment

www.thedailystar.net

Bangladesh Railway’s service woes persist
Its mismanaged system needs more than investment

VISUAL: STAR

Bangladesh Railway (BR) continues to bleed financially and fail its passengers despite years of heavy investment. According to a recent Bonik Barta report, the government currently spends over Tk 4,000 crore annually on railway operations, with much of it directed towards maintenance, cleaning, and on-board services. Yet, passengers have seen little return from this investment, as complaints about dirty trains and stations, irregular schedules, ticket black marketeering, and technical failures persist. What's more baffling is that investment in the rail sector has increased significantly over the last 10 to 15 years, yet neither its services nor its profits have improved much.

In the fiscal year 2023-24, the Ministry of Railways was allocated a total of Tk 19,010.69 crore, including both operating and development expenditure. BR's income fell to Tk 1,845 crore in FY2024-2025—down 4.15 percent from the previous year—marking its first post-pandemic negative growth. While revenues rose slightly in the first quarter of FY2025-26, losses are projected to exceed Tk 1,574 crore for the fiscal year.

Meanwhile, even at the busiest station of the country in the capital's Kamalapur, there are still not enough toilets, waiting rooms, or functioning fans. Existing facilities are unhygienic, and many passengers have little choice but to wait on crowded platforms. Similar conditions exist at regional stations. Inside trains, passengers face broken seats, unclean toilets, and overcrowded compartments, often filled with "standing" and ticketless commuters beyond official capacity. Frequent derailments and incidents of coaches detaching mid-journey indicate a serious lapse in maintenance. Such conditions contradict the official claim that the purpose of increased operating expenditure is to improve passenger service.

Experts attribute the failures to inefficiency and lack of accountability. The railways ministry's adviser further admitted that the maintenance system "is not functioning properly" and that many of the workshops lack the required technical standards. Although the ministry claims to have reduced the operating ratio from 2.4 to 1.8, the improvement has not translated into visible benefits for passengers. Furthermore, cases of wasteful procurement, including non-operational track machines and defective train models, have been reported in recent years. These incidents point to a pattern of project design driven more by bureaucratic and procurement interests than by service needs.

To address these issues, BR must move beyond ad-hoc spending and prioritise structural reforms. Regular technical audits, transparent procurement, and independent monitoring of ongoing projects are essential. Resources should be directed towards maintenance, safety upgrades, and passenger facilities rather than ill-conceived projects. Without strict accountability and long-term planning, even large budget allocations will continue to yield little improvement in railway service or its financial performance.​

 

[Saif]

newagebd.net/post/opinion/284354/limping-railway-fails-passengers

Limping railway fails passengers

Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha

THE Bangladesh Railway remains one of the most paradoxical public institutions. Every year, more than Tk 4,000 crore is poured into its operations, with an intent to improve the quality of passenger services. Much of this money is consumed by cleanliness drives, onboard services, the maintenance of engines and coaches and the procurement of essential spare parts. Yet, the experience of passengers suggests that the institution is drifting in the opposite direction. What should have been a slow but steady march towards reliability and comfort has instead become a landscape of familiar failures.

The railway’s financial data reveal the first layer of this exhaustion. For the first time since the Covid outbreak, revenue fell into the negative territory in the 2024–25 financial year. Earnings settled at Tk 1,845 crore, a 4.15 per cent decline from that of the previous year. While the current financial year has showed a small rebound with Tk 532 crore earned in its first quarter, the trajectory is hardly encouraging. The projected loss for 2025–26 is Tk 1,574 crore and, by the admission of officials, the figure is expected to grow as the year progresses. Even if revenue rises marginally, it is far from enough to narrow the widening gap between income and expenditure.

The rationale behind heavy operational spending has always been that improved services would eventually yield an increased number of passengers, higher revenue and better cost recovery. But the puzzle remains unresolved. Investment has expanded substantially over the past decade, including major line upgrades, new stations, new bridges and the procurement of rolling stock. But the quality of services, in the perception of passengers, remains where it was years ago, if not worse in some areas.

One of the deepest fault lines runs through the ticketing system. For years, the railway has failed to establish a transparent and reliable ticket sales mechanism. On high-demand routes, the bulk of tickets seem to dissipate before ordinary passengers even reach the counters or online portals. The persistence of syndicates signals a structural failure that goes far beyond petty corruption. When a public service cannot guarantee equitable access to something as basic as a ticket, it is already sliding into irrelevance.

The disappointment continues inside the train. The Bangladesh Railway allows standing tickets amounting to 25 per cent of intercity seats. That figure alone poses questions about safety and comfort. On top of this sanctioned crowding, the presence of unticketed passengers transforms compartments into congested aisles of discomfort. Ordinary passengers find themselves squeezed between standing commuters, crying children, luggage stacked haphazardly and the constant anxiety of theft.

The condition of washrooms has been a longstanding grievance. Even new and recently refurbished coaches fall quickly into deterioration, suggesting that both user behaviour and institutional maintenance culture are failing simultaneously. Toilets remain unclean, broken fixtures stay unattended for months, floors accumulate layers of dust and dirt, and water often remains unavailable. For a service that aspires to compete with road transport, the daily realities make the railway experience unattractive.

The problem intensifies when one examines the backbone of the system: its stations. Kamalapur, the country’s busiest railway hub, stands as a symbol of both promise and decay. Its size, traffic volume and strategic importance should have placed it at the forefront of service modernisation. Instead, passengers navigate the station with a sense of compromise. Restrooms are few and even fewer are usable. Fans installed for public comfort often remain switched off. Free drinking water is available, but hygiene concerns deter most passengers. Public spaces frequently serve as gathering spots for loiterers with questionable intentions and reports of theft inside the station area are far from rare.

If this is the state of the premier station, conditions in stations in district s would show the depth of the problem. Many lack even minimal amenities expected of a public transport hub. Passengers wait outdoors without shelter, lighting is inadequate, toilets are non-existent or unusable and platforms often resemble open dumps rather than public utilities.

The most alarming trend, however, concerns safety. In recent months, incidents of derailments and the detachment of bogies or engines during travel have created an atmosphere of constant unease. These are not isolated mechanical lapses but symptoms of deeper institutional erosion: rail joints in fragile condition, sleepers that have deteriorated and inconsistent maintenance cycles pointing to systemic neglect rather than unfortunate accidents. Each derailment or bogie separation is not simply a technical failure but a stark reminder of the risks embedded in the journey itself.

A significant portion of these problems stems from the railway’s maintenance culture. The institution’s factories, workshops, and maintenance yards operate with outdated technology and inadequate quality control. When maintenance becomes a ritual rather than a responsibility, accidents become inevitable. Even among officials, there is acknowledgment that maintenance is not functioning at the standard required for a national transport network.

The issue is compounded by a shortage of engines and coaches. The system is running with rolling stock that is insufficient for current passenger demand. Even if orders are placed today, delivery takes years. The railway is stuck between its swelling demand and shrinking capacity and the result is a perpetual shortage that limits service expansion and compromises quality.

Yet, the operational ratio is used as a symbol of improvement. The ratio, previously around 2.4 meaning the railway spent Tk 2.40 for every Tk 1 earned, has reportedly been reduced to around 1.8. While this appears positive at the first glance, it reveals another uncomfortable truth: service quality is not improving in tandem with cost reduction. A lower operational ratio achieved without meaningful improvement in passenger experience indicates that the belt-tightening is happening where it should not, possibly in areas like maintenance, cleanliness and staff deployment.

The inability to meet revenue targets further destabilises the railway’s financial position. For the current fiscal year, an income target of Tk 3,173 crore was set. It has already been acknowledged that this will not be achieved, with revised expectations lowering the target to Tk 2,655 crore. Lower revenue amid rising costs makes the future trajectory of the railway even more uncertain.

All this points to a deeper structural failure. At its core, the Bangladesh Railway suffers from fragmented governance, weak internal accountability and a declining institutional ethos. Investment alone cannot repair these fractures. A modern train system is not merely an assortment of engines, coaches and rail tracks. It is a culture of discipline, cleanliness, punctuality, safety and public orientation. These are the qualities that define successful railway systems across the world.Travel guide book

The gaps are visible at every level: from the station floors to the coach interiors, from the ticket counters to the maintenance yards, from the management rooms to the rail lines themselves. The institution’s problems have become chronic because the corrective mechanisms needed to address them have never been allowed to mature.

The interim government assumed office with significant public expectations. Citizens believed that even if large-scale structural changes were unrealistic within a short time, at least the visible mismanagement, inefficiency and everyday suffering of passengers would be addressed. Instead, the system has continued operating in its familiar state of inertia.

If the railway is to be revitalised, the transformation cannot be cosmetic. It must begin with maintenance reforms, accountability within workshops, transparent ticketing, proper staff monitoring and a disciplined service culture. Clean coaches and functioning toilets should not be luxuries. Safe rail joints and reliable bogies should not depend on luck. Efficient stations should not be exceptions.

The Bangladesh Railway stands at a crossroads, pulled between its importance and dysfunction. Without a decisive cultural shift inside the institution, the country will continue pouring money into a system that delivers little more than frustration. A public railway should be a symbol of national progress, not a daily reminder of structural decay.

HM Nazmul Alam, an academic, journalist and political analyst, teaches at International University of Business Agriculture and Technology.​