Shoddy railway maintenance
A story published in this newspaper on Wednesday reported how 50 percent of the wooden sleepers of a railway bridge in Kulaura upazila on Dhaka-Sylhet railway line are damaged. On top of that, the response by the authorities to this issue of public safety has been to do a slapdash job in the name of repairs.
Instead of proper replacements, authorities have used pieces of bamboo to hold together the word-out sleepers. We are confounded as to how this could ever be a proper response to the issue, especially when train drivers themselves feel that the train might derail anytime due to the poor condition of the bridge.
Sloppy repair jobs are not new. We have seen instances of this before from authorities, be it in terms of buildings or railways. The common thread is an utter disregard for human lives that are put to risk. In the case of a major railway line in the country, the negligence is all the more unpardonable.
The assurances given by staff and engineers of the bridge and Bangladesh Railway fail to convince. Shortage of sleepers or failure to get response from higher authorities are parts of the problem itself. If those are indeed factors to the poor condition of the bridge, it shows that the fault and irresponsibility is not just an isolated incident, but a reason to doubt the efficiency of the railway authority itself. We demand that this sloppy maintenance job be dealt with severely, and the lack of coordination and care on the part of the authorities be investigated. Public safety on this scale cannot be just glossed over.
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