IFC proposals on private power plants, railways

The state of affairs in the country's power and railway sectors is not that palatable, the tall claims often made by the government policymakers notwithstanding. Despite substantial increase in power generation capacity in recent years, the availability of electricity at the consumers' end is still not uninterrupted. Moreover, power has become pricier due to the inefficient and liquid fuel-guzzling private rental power plants. The high power tariff has given rise to deep resentment among the power subscribers.
The situation in the state-owned Bangladesh Railway (BR) is not better either. Despite having enormous potential to develop as a cheap and efficient mode of mass transportation, the BR has remained stuck to the usual image of an inefficient public sector entity. The services and facilities it offers are outdated and fail to attract all sections of passengers. Only during Eid holidays when reaching home by any means is the priority of everyone, there is a rush for the trains. During the normal times, the passengers belonging to the middle and affluent classes skip trains that are slow moving and prone to miss their arrival and departure schedules. The government has invested funds worth billions for improvement of the BR services with the help of multilateral donors. But, unfortunately, any tangible improvement could not be achieved and the BR remains a loss-incurring entity as ever for the government.
 Corruption, sloth on the part of the policymakers and inefficiency of the BR management are held responsible for the prevailing situation. Against this backdrop, a couple of proposals made by a visiting delegation of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank (WB) group, deserve priority attention of the government.  The delegation during its meeting with the finance minister late last week suggested that the government should allow the private sector to build small power plants within the premises of large public sector power plants and also to make investment in the railway sector. The benefits of the proposals are many.
Firstly, the installation of a private power plant within the premises of a state-owned large power plant would help the private power plant operators save cost and get easy access to grid facilities. Both would help the private power plants concerned to sell power to the government at relatively lower rates, leading to some relief to power subscribers. Secondly, the involvement of the private sector in the operation of the railways would surely make running of trains efficient. The finance minister is also in favour of transferring the responsibility of operating the Dhaka-Chittagong route to the private sector to make it profitable. The government can consider the option of leasing out the route to the private sector operators through open bidding.  
Making the operation of the Dhaka-Chittagong rail route, commercially the most important one, fast and efficient is a priority job for the government. The railways would assume the top position as a mode of transportation only if it is made adequately efficient and its services are improved. The IFC suggestions with regard to private power plants and the railways are of serious nature. These should not merely stir up transient interest and then forgotten. The policymakers should consider the proposals in their right perspective and try to implement the same for the greater benefit of the country.