BR set to buy 70 'technically imperfect' Indian AC coaches

FHM Humayan Kabir The Bangladesh Railway (BR) will procure 'technically imperfect' 70 broad-gauge air-conditioned (AC) passenger coaches from India despite its lack of capacity to operate those on its limited routes across the country, officials said Friday. The Railway will purchase the coaches at a cost of Tk 9.14 billion out of the Indian Line of Credit (LoC) although it has only two viable routes in the country's western region for operation, sources concerned said. "The Railway has only two viable broad-gauge (BG) lines. One is from Dhaka to Rajshahi and another is from Dhaka to Khulna. It already has enough AC coaches for these two routes. Procurement of 70 more coaches under the circumstances is really ridiculous," a top government official said. The railway service provider is procuring the 'imperfect' and 'non-viable' AC passenger coaches from India without considering the economic and financial viability, the official told the FE requesting anonymity. According to the BR, it is already operating some inter-city trains on Dhaka-Rajshahi, Dhaka-Khulna and Dhaka-Nilphamari BG routes with maximum three AC coaches at each of the trains. The official said only two to three AC coaches are enough for a train along with its non-AC coaches for plying on any route in the country. The BR's western region has the broad-gauge routes while the eastern region has metre-gauge ones. "If the railway launches a fully air-conditioned service it will require 7-8 coaches for a train. So, where will it operate the 70 AC coaches? And how much are the fully AC trains viable in the western region', the official questioned. Besides, the Indian AC coaches are 'technically imperfect' which will not be compatible with the BR infrastructures. Those would remain unutilised, he added. The proposed passenger AC coaches are 140.99MMD (nearly 8.0 inches) higher than the existing coaches in the country. Those will be not fit with the Bangladesh's railway infrastructure, he said. The official said bridges on the rivers on railway lines across the country have been constructed as per the specification of the existing engines and passenger coaches. If the maximum moving dimension (MMD) of the proposed Indian passenger coaches is higher than our present engines and coaches, these will not be able to cross the bridges, he said. A Ministry of Railway (MoR) official said the BR signed a purchase deal for 70 AC coaches with an Indian company without a competitive bidding as only one of its state-owned firm manufactures the passenger coaches. Meanwhile, the Planning Commission (PC) has already detected the 'shoddy' work in the Tk 9.14 billion 70 BG AC coaches procurement project and refused to give approval, another official told the FE on condition of anonymity. A BR senior official said they had earlier taken a project to procure AC metre-gauge (MG) coaches from India with the support from New Delhi's billion dollar LoC. Later, the BR had changed the specification to BG since no Indian suppliers were ready at that moment to supply the MG coaches, he added. The plan to procure imperfect 70 AC coaches from India will create serious problems during transportation of passengers, an official concerned said. The MoR official said the BR had undertaken the 70 AC coach procurement project without proper feasibility study. When contacted, Director General of the BR Abu Taher was not available for comment. According to the BR, out of its existing 324 coaches, 18 are air-conditioned and the rest are non-AC and conventional ones. The AC coaches ply on mainly the Dhaka-Chittagong, Dhaka-Rajshahi, Dhaka-Khulna, Dhaka-Sylhet, Dhaka-Nilphamari routes.