Understaffed workshop faces huge backlog

Carriage and Wagon Repair Workshop of the east zone of Bangladesh Railway (BR) is operating with half the workforce required, causing a huge backlog of work annually.
In addition, most of the infrastructure and machine of the repair shop, which was set up at Pahartoli in Chittagong city in 1947, are wearing down.
Md Harun-ar-Rashid, divisional superintendent (workshop), BR (east zone), said the workshop currently had 1,098 staff when it needed 2,128.
With about a 50 percent shortage in manpower, it has to repair and look after about 930 carriages of the railway east zone, he added.
The official said more than four hundred coaches remained uncared for annually at the workshop due to the understaffing.
He identified inadequate supply of repair materials as another major problem. For a lack of manpower and necessary supplies, the coaches, which are brought to the yard for repair, suffer further damage by lying unattended for a long time, he said.
All the maintenance and repair works are carried out at 22 shops, including carriage shop, wagon shop, paint shop, wheel shop, wielding shop, foundry shop and smithy shop, at the workshop sitting over some 35 acres of land.
Workers at the shops regularly renovate steel structure, under frame, floor, side panel, roof, seat, berth, door, window, water tank, trolley, wheel, toilet, fan, light, air-cooling system, and engine of power car and do internal decoration of coaches.
Harun-ar-Rashid said the workers could repair only two units (which mean one coach) against a daily demand of repair of five units. It results in a huge backlog at the end of the year, he said.
The railway official also said the average age of the workshop's workforce now stood at 53, and their working capacity was falling gradually.
A process of recruiting 2,572 people in 58 categories at the east zone is underway, said
Md Gaos Al Munir, chief personnel officer of railway east zone.
The east zone general manager (GM) will allocate the new staff to the workshop as per requirement, he said, adding the recruitment would be completed by December 31.
GM of BR (east zone) Md Tafazzal Hossain said they had taken up a modernisation project, financed by Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica), for the workshop. The Tk 146 crore project includes restoration of physical infrastructure and replacement of decaying plants and equipment, he said.