Another rail project taking forever
In June 2018, the Bangladesh Railways took up a Tk 3,602 crore project that would substantively enhance its operational capacity in three years.
Come June 2021, let alone complete the project -- which entails procuring 40 locomotives, 125 luggage vans and 1,000 wagons -- it has failed to complete the signing of agreements with all vendors, in a development that has become characteristic of the BR.
Of the 37 projects it is implementing, 26 -- including this one -- has been extended at least once.
At present, this project's deadline is June 2022. Given that only yesterday the BR has signed the fourth of the five contracts needed for the project, another lengthy extension is most definitely in the offing.
Another three years after the expiry of the revised deadline of June 2022 is needed, Project Director Mizanur Rahman told The Daily Star yesterday.
Prodded on the delay, Railways Minister Nurul Islam Sujan largely blamed the pandemic.
"But I would not say that there was no laxity on our part," he added.
Apart from the two reasons, Rahman said the lengthy tendering process retarded the pace of the project, which is largely being funded with a loan from the Asian Development Bank.
"We have to take concurrence from ADB at every step -- time extension is normal in almost all the projects," he added.
The BR is implementing is nine projects with loans from the Manila-based multilateral lender and the deadline for all but two had to be extended, document shows.
It is hopeful that the project will progress briskly now that it is close to signing all five contracts.
The fifth contract -- which is for procuring 420 broad-gauge (BG) wagons from the Kolkata-based Hindusthan Engineering and Industries -- will be signed early next month, according to Rahman.
Yesterday, it signed a two-and-a-half-year contract with Chinese CRRC Shandong Company to procure 580 metre-gauge (MG) wagons for Tk 318.6 crore.
CRRC Shandong, which is also supplying 71 freight trains to London Underground, will deliver the wagons within 27 months from the effective date of the contract and complete all procedures within 30 months.
The contract is expected to be activated within 15 days, Rahman said.
The fourth and fifth contracts were scheduled to be signed last year.
But the concurrence did not come in time, so the tendering process had to be started afresh, Sujan said.
Asked why MG wagons are being procured when the BR will convert all tracks to BG as per its 30-year master plan to 2045, he said: "We have to use MG for the next 10 to 15 years, so we need wagons and locomotive to provide service on those. A major portion of the railway network is still MG tracks."
In January 2019, the BR struck a deal with US-based Progress Rail for purchasing 40 BG locomotives.
In August 2020, it signed another contract with a Chinese joint-venture firm to procure 125 luggage vans (75 MG and 50 BG vans under two packages) to boost the transportation of agro-based products.
As of October, the project has witnessed 8 percent physical progress and 12.5 percent financial progress.