BR\\\'s SUVs: Gouri Sen won\\\'t mind!

The state-owned Bangla-desh Railway (BR) still lives in the sixties as far as the quality of the services it offers to thousands of passengers everyday is concerned. Its passenger coaches wear a sickening look and the worn-out and diesel-run locomotives usually move at snail's pace in an era when bullet trains in China, Japan and many other countries run at an average speed of 200 kilometre per hour.  
The BR's train service could have been the most efficient mode of mass transportation at an affordable cost. It has got all the potential. But graft, incompetence and lack of due attention to improve services have made the BR the least used mode of surface transportation.
But when it comes to misappropriation or abuse of public funds, the BR people, as is found in the case of other public sector agencies, tend to be hyperactive.
The decision to procure at least 15 luxury sports utility vehicles (SUVs), each costing more than Tk 18.2 million (one crore eighty two lakh) and 45 other vehicles at a cost of Tk 638 million under an Asian Development Bank (ADB)-financed project is a case in point. The Tk 68.30-billion project is designed to transform the existing Laksham-Akahura meter gauze railway tracks into a mixed gauze ones.
One would feel tempted to ask a very pertinent question: why would BR need so many luxury vehicles for one single project?
The Planning Commission has raised an identical question and suggested reducing the number of vehicles.
But the BR is unlikely to heed the suggestion. It maintains that the vehicles are essential for implementation of the project. It, in all likelihood, would procure the vehicles.
The procurement of luxury vehicles by various government agencies against large development projects, particularly the donor-funded ones, is an old practice - a malpractice, to be precise. In recent years, it has only gathered pace.
In addition to financial irregularities, the procurement of luxury vehicles under different government projects is partly designed to keep top officials and political masters at the ministries concerned in good humour - of course, at the expense of the public exchequer.
The top men at the ministries, too, are generally found to be quite indulgent as far as the
procurement of vehicles in the name of development projects is concerned.
Barring a few exceptions, ministers and top officials of the ministries, state-owned enterprises, banks and financial institutions use more than one vehicle. At least one vehicle remains specially deployed for use by the members of their families.
Sometimes back a leading Bengali daily published a detailed report how the facilities relating to government vehicles were being abused with total impunity. The authorities concerned even failed to trace vehicles of a number of development projects.
Following the publication of the report there was a flurry of activities on the 'abuse' of government vehicles. But after some days the issue turned dead as usual. In fact the investigators are also a party to the alleged malpractices involving government transports. So, one cannot expect things to move in the right
direction.
True, some large development projects do need vehicles having four-wheel driving facilities and raised clearance. But prior to sending the project proposals to the Planning Commission for approval, it would be proper on the part of the ministries concerned to examine those and remove the components that are not at all essential.
The propensity to waste funds received from foreign sources on redundant areas or to reap personal gains needs to be changed. However, this will be possible only if the persons at the helm of the ministries/departments/directorates are honest and sincere.
It is not just the money of various development projects that is being misappropriated or wasted right and left.  A section of people, including government officials and employees, do consider anything belonging to the state as 'Gouri Sen's' property that is open to random abuse and pilferage.
Pilferage of gas, power and water across the country in connivance with the officials and employees of agencies concerned is a glaring example. Will anyone dare pilfer goods and services belonging to any private individual or company the same way? Will the private owner be an onlooker as the government is?  
Similarly, it is the government land, be it in towns or villages, which is grabbed at will. Influential people, political or otherwise, remain in the forefront of land grabbing.
Fake documents of ownership are prepared with the help of officials working in land offices. This has been more than a century-old practice. But the incidence of grabbing has been increasing due to the fast decline in land-man ratio.
Instances of pilferage and wastage of government funds and assets in this country are aplenty. And the offences are being committed openly. Unfortunately, the owner is indifferent and cares little about the losses it has been incurring on this account for decades after decades.
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