Why raise fares?
BANGLADESH Railway has hiked its fares by a little over seven percent. The regular hikes in fares have been justified since 2012 on the promise to improve the quality of service, which sadly has not been forthcoming. Then again, we are told that the railway needs to cut down on annual losses of about Tk. 1000 crores per annum and fares need to be adjusted upwards to cover operational costs. But if we delve deeper into the issue, we find that losses suffered by railway have little to do with subsidised fares railway suffer from.
As pointed out in an article in the Financial Express on January 25, 2016, there is much to be done in providing enough rail carriages to meet current and growing demand. "A glaring example of the demand-supply mismatch is the mad rush for rail tickets during Eid time. Even after spending the whole night in the station, many passengers fail to avail their tickets due to the shortage of supply. The poor capacity of the railway to meet the passengers' demand also reflects the urgent need of modernisation and upgradation of rail operation." The poor quality of services on board trains are nothing new and appear to have been going downhill over time. A recent overnight trip to Chittagong by this writer on the AC Coach Service revealed some very interesting facts. First, the train made several stops between stations to pick up unauthorised passengers who would be making the journey either standing up or sitting on the non-1st class coaches and corridors. The situation made walking quite impossible from our coach to the diner and vice versa. It is best not to talk about the toilets, while rodents and roaches travel with people all the time, or so we hear. This of course is one firsthand account of a journey taken of late.
Recent surveys by various organisations like the Passenger Welfare Association of Bangladesh (PWAB) have revealed various anomalies. For instance, the ticketing system is rigged in such a manner that one cannot get tickets during peak times which allows for a section of staff to make tickets available by paying a little "extra". The seats of coaches, other than the AC ones, are rundown to the point of either being broken or have seat cushioning that is damaged. Toilets are often without lights, and carriages are poorly lit. There is often no running water in the toilets and the latrines are so ill-maintained that using them in the first place requires nerves of steel.
One of the basic realities of state-owned enterprises is the rampant graft that is allowed to flourish due to poor state of governance. Railway has suffered from such systemic problems for years. Indeed they come to surface from the various audit reports conducted by the government itself. For instance an audit by the Office of the Comptroller and Audit General on land management and recovery of license fees covering three financial years (FY08-FY10) found non-recovery of compensation from the various government organisations, non-realisation of license fees for using land belonging to railway and the illegal occupancy of railway land. Other irregularities have been found in procurement of development works. This report covered a six year period, 2001-2007, found that the service had lost more than Tk. 700 million due to irregularities. Despite such damning evidence unearthed by the government's own watchdog bodies, there have been no disciplinary actions against officials, which in essence merely help perpetuate the system of graft.
If railway is truly to become a mainstay in our transportation system, we need to do something about ensuring its good governance. Mere hiking of fares will do little to allay the problems faced by railway. Authorities need to go after recovery of occupied lands and other assets which on paper, is owned by railway, but to which it no longer has access. There is serious need to be more prudent in quality implementation of the budget allocated to the service in the national budget. At the end of the day, one simply cannot discount the importance of railway as an essential mode of mass transportation dedicated to the movement of bulk goods and people. No other mode of transportation is as safe or as economical as railway. Yet, our railway continues to sputter along on an infrastructure that is dilapidated to the point whereby the service has become inoperable in about 100 stations; railway tracks are worn out causing derailment and there accidents are increasing because the service suffers from inadequate staffing.
Instead of raising fares, authorities should focus on increasing revenue by other means. Why not introduce more freight trains from the port city of Chittagong to Dhaka and vice versa? Why not work out the bugs with the ticketing system and make a serious attempt at improving passengers' comfort on the journey so that more people can avail the service. Why not introduce more shuttle services to adjoining districts so that people can come to Dhaka to work and go back in the evenings which would also help reduce over-congestion of people and traffic in the city? Such measures would go a long way to help recuperate the annual losses faced by railway. They would also help transform an essential service into a meaningful service that bears dividends to commuters.
The writer is Assistant Editor, The Daily Star.
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