The communications and railways minister, Obaidul Quader, has said the government is contemplating raising the train fares as there has been no fare hike in the last 20 years.
‘The train fares of Bangladesh Railway need to be raised as there has been no fare hike since 1992,’ he told a function in the city Sunday morning.
He said the fares of trains would be raised only after improvement in the railway’s services. ‘The railway services cannot be improved for lack of manpower and other problems. Things will be on right track soon.’
The minister was speaking at the function arranged at Rail Bhaban in the morning, marking the signing of an agreement between Bangladesh Railway and Rites Limited of India.
The joint director general of Bangladesh Railway, Shamsuzzaman, and the director (technical) of Rites Limited, inked the deal. Obaidul Quader, railway secretary Fazle Kabir and DG Abu Taher were present on the occasion.
Under the agreement, Rites Limited, an enterprise of the Indian government, will provide 16 broad gauge locomotives to Bangladesh Railway at a cost of Tk 609 crore.
About Railway’s recently introduced e-ticketing, Obaidul Quader said the e-ticketing system has been introduced in the wake of abuse of the mobile ticketing system, and said the present 10 per cent quota of e-ticketing will be raised to 25 per cent in consultation with the prime minister.
On corruption and grabbing of Railway’s lands, the minister said actions would be taken against the offenders based on the reports submitted by two probe bodies. We’ll go for actions within a week after the scrutiny of the probe reports by another two committees I’ve formed.
Obaidul said Bangladesh Railway would observe ‘Safety and Cleanliness Week’ from June 24 to June 30, aiming to improve its services.