Readers’ Forum

No Time table in print for decades

Cost and maintenance are inter-related, and so is cost and purchase. But its confirmation is hardly found in the Bangladesh Railways. One of my friends told me the other day, “If you visit Kamalapur Railway Station or any other railway junction, you will see railway carriages, platforms, waiting rooms, and ticket counters dirty, unclean and filthy because there is no maintenance. Such a picture was absent even in the eighties and before, as management was strong and careful.”
Bangladesh Railway has not been publishing railway time table for the last two decades. When I asked a railway official about the reason, he gave me no answer; rather, he looked at me in such an angle as if I made a mistake asking him about the time table. Now if a passenger wants to travel to Rajshahi, he will have to go to Kamalapur Railway Station first to know the arrival and departure time, and fare of ticket of each class of the trains running between Dhaka and Rajshahi. Perhaps, there is no other railway service in the world that does not print time table.
I have given my opinion on several occasions through this letter column that the management of the Bangladesh Railway may consult the management of the Indian Railways in order that the railway service in Bangladesh improves, and becomes a profitable organization.

Abdullah Akber
Dhaka