Link to North-West, North: Smooth railway traffic not soon

A bottleneck on the rail route between Dhaka and the country's north-western and southern regions is unlikely to go away anytime soon as one of the two projects aimed at improving the track capacity are stuck in limbo due to delayed loan negotiations and a cost-cutting directive.

To tackle the growing traffic movement, Bangladesh Railway (BR) had undertaken a project to build a dedicated rail bridge over the Jamuna river and another to turn the Joydebpur-Ishwardi section into a dual-gauge double line.

While the first project has witnessed 20 percent progress and is expected to be completed by August 2024, physical work on the second is yet to start.

More than two years into the approval of the Joydebpur-Ishwardi project, the loan deal with China has not yet been signed.

At a cost of Tk 14,250.61 crore, the project was supposed to be implemented between January 2019 and December 2024, according to BR documents.

Of the total project cost, the Chinese government was supposed to provide a loan of Tk 8,756.75 crore. The director general of BR has not yet received a response on the loan deal.

In January, the railways ministry wrote to the Chinese government for the third time to expedite the process for signing the loan deal, laying emphasis on the importance of the synchronisation of the two projects to get the desired benefits.

Railway officials said completion of one project without the other will not solve the gridlock in rail traffic.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister's Office in November last year directed the railways ministry to significantly reduce the cost of the Joydebpur-Ishwardi project, leading to further negotiations with the contractor.

Although PMO ordered project costs to be cut, railway officials told The Daily Star they feared delays in project implementation may cause cost escalation.

As per the negotiations, the contractor is set to take four years to complete the project after launching the work, they said.

BR's Director General Dhirendra Nath Mazumder, however, said once the loan deal is signed and re-negotiation with the contractor is done, they will bring forward the deadline and direct the contractor to speed up their work to make up for lost time.

THE BOTTLENECK

Delayed schedules of trains connecting the capital with the north-western and southern regions have been a common phenomenon for the last few years.

Dhaka is linked to these regions by the single-line Joydebpur-Ishwardi section.

According to railway officials, a maximum of 22 trains can run smoothly through the single line per day. But with 42 trains now running through it daily, trains have to wait at nearby stations to make way for each other, causing delays in their schedules.

Besides, the "block section" -- the distance from one station to another -- between Joydebpur and Bangabandhu Bridge (East) Station is relatively long, meaning each train has to wait longer to make way for another.

Then comes the delay at Bangabandhu Bridge.

Trains have to run at the "restricted speed" of 20 kilometres per hour while crossing the bridge. It takes around half an hour to cross the 7km stretch between the bridge's east and west stations, they added.

THE DUAL PROBLEM

Railways Minister Nurul Islam Sujan, on several occasions, said the problems regarding the delay in train schedules on this route cannot be resolved until the construction of the rail bridge and the dual-gauge double line from Joydebpur to Ishwardi is complete.

Back in January 2016, the government took up the project to construct a dedicated double-line rail bridge over the Jamuna river and after a long delay, physical work of the project started in August last year.

Once the 4.8km bridge is constructed under the Tk 16,781 crore project by August 2024, 88 trains can run smoothly per day, project officials said.

The government took up the Tk 14,250.61 crore project to turn the 174-km Joydebpur-Ishwardi section into a dual-gauge double line in November 2018.

BR completed negotiations with China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation for implementing the project.

In March 2019, the railways ministry sent a letter to the Chinese government, requesting them to sign the deal. In the last two years, the ministry has sent a letter to the Chinese government thrice -- the last one in January -- ministry sources said.

Then, in September last year, the PMO formed a high-powered committee to review the costs of three railway projects supposed to be implemented with Chinese finance and by Chinese companies.

Following the committee recommendations, the PMO directed the railways ministry to reduce the costs of two projects -- one of which was the Joydebpur-Ishwardi project.

As per the directives, Tk 1,495.52 crore has to be slashed from the project's contract price -- Tk 11,586.68 crore -- approved by the Cabinet Committee on Government Purchase for the Joydebpur-Ishwardi rail line expansion project. The amount is 12.91 percent of the contract price.

BR, at a meeting on December 9 last year, decided to discuss the PMO decision with the Chinese contractor and re-send the procurement proposal to the Cabinet Committee on Government Purchase.

The meeting also formed a three-committee led by the then Additional Director General (infrastructure) Dhirendra Nath Mazumder, who took charge as BR DG early last month, for this task.

Contacted, BR DG Dhirendra Nath said they have already sent the proposal to the contractor for the cost-cutting and they are now reviewing it. "We hope to get their reply soon," he told The Daily Star on March 4.

Regarding the delay in loan sanctioning, Dhirendra Nath said, "In that case we will ask the contractor to speed up their work. We will reduce the lead time.

"Works of the project can be done quickly as it will be a new line."

He added, "It will be good for us if the decision is taken as early as possible."