Railways addl secy Mahbub Kabir removed from post; made OSD

Additional Secretary of the Ministry of Railways Mahbub Kabir has been removed from his post and made an officer on special duty (OSD).

He has been attached to the Ministry of Public Administration.

The public administration ministry issued a notification today on the transfer of five additional secretaries. Four of them were given different responsibilities, while Mahbub Kabir was made OSD, according to the circular.

He was transferred as additional secretary in the Ministry of Railways on March 25 while he was the acting chairman of the Bangladesh Food Safety Authority.

An official of the food safety authority told The Daily Star this evening that Mahbub was instrumental in the campaign against food adulteration.

He also did a lot of work to control the quality of food in restaurants which was appreciated by all at that time, he said.

Mahbub also introduced the quality-rating system for restaurants.

After that, Mahbub came to the Ministry of Railways and took initiatives against the black market for tickets.

He is said to have proposed connecting the railway ticketing system to the National Identity Card database. The new method would only allow the person in whose name the ticket was issued to travel.

After being OSD, Mahbub made a posted about it on his verified Facebook account around 4pm today. In four-and-a-half hours, 21,000 people responded to his post.

About 4,000 have commented on it and it has been shared by more than 4,600 people.