The Bangladesh Railway (BR) suffers an operating loss of estimated over Tk 45 million each day for keeping all passenger and cargo trains suspended since the quota reform movement turned violent on July 18.
The state-owned train operator runs 335 trains and 26 freight trains daily which managed revenue of Tk 17.50 billion in the fiscal year 2023-24.
Sources said as all train services except urgent fuel cargo have been suspended for the last 12 days, the BR's loss is estimated no less than Tk 540 million.
However, this time the train operator has to bear a demurrage of Tk 500 million for refunding money of all trains' tickets as the BR sells tickets 10 days before the schedule days.
"It means the loss of the state in railway sector this time for keeping trains totally off would be higher as the BR is never a profit-making entity," said an analyst.
The BR's net operating income which is always negative due to a huge gap in income and expenditure was Tk 17.56 billion as operating expense was Tk 28.67 billion against operating revenue of Tk 11.11 billion.
The general managers of the BR's two zones said during the last 12 days, the BR's fuel was only not needed but also its other expense like maintaining stations, office staff, signaling etc. needed to be maintained despite no train operation.
So, it cannot be assess easily the actual operating loss during the last 12 days, said the GM of Western Zone.
The BR had to keep its train services suspended highest over two months during the lockdown for the Covid-19 pandemic. There no such example of keeping the trains totally off since the country's independence, said a senior railway official.
Railway Secretary Dr Humayun Ahmed said the government this time has decided to keep all trains off to ensure safety and security for the BR property and passengers.
"It is quite time consuming to buy railway equipment including carriages and locomotives. Not only time, those are expensive too and also the BR has severe shortage of these," he told the FE at his office.
According to the BR data, it has to maintain 3093 kilometre route and 4,438km track, 489 stations along with staff of nearly 26,000.
Around 60 per cent passengers of the BR are being carried by intercity trains which, the data, say over 91 per cent of the total earning of from passenger traffic. But the BR's passenger earning dropped from 61 per cent in 2019-2020 to 43.25 per cent in 2020-21.
Freight earning also varies as it was 21.81 per cent in 2019-2020 and 31.19 per cent in 2020-2021. Other earnings like lease and advertisement contributed 16 per cent and 23 per cent respectively.
smunima@yahoo.com