Bangladesh Railway, through providing hearty and sincere services to the traders, farmers as well as the commoners amid the virus pandemic, has created a very good image across the country.
The state-owned rail transport agency has come forward for carrying various essential commodities, food items, agro-products and even the sacrificial animals for the upcoming Eid-ul-Azha amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
Railway officials are now hopeful of minimising their losses. They are also hopeful of being profitable through these services.
According to sources, the BR is carrying goods not only inside the country; the quantity of various goods carrying from neighbouring India has also increased.
The BR officials said since passenger trains are not being used now, the engines of the passenger trains are being used for goods carrying purposes.
BR Director General Md. Shamsuzzaman said they would increase their goods carrying capacities considering the demand.
He said they had decided to carry goods when farmers fell in crisis to carry their products after the lockdown had been imposed on March 26 due to the spread of coronavirus.
BR officials said, at first the BR launched a special train to carry mangoes on Dhaka-Rajshahi route at a very cheap rate.
Md Mia Jahan, Additional Director General (Operation) of the BR, said they carried over 1,000 tones of mangoes in the last one month.
He also said at least 25 trains are now engaged in carrying of food items and goods in the East and West Zones of the BR.
According to official sources, since the imposition of lockdown, the state-owned train operator ran 1,281 trains with containers, tankers, food grains, Indian goods, fertilizers etc. until the end of June.
The official data shows that apart from transport of Indian goods, BR has operated 324 container trains and 423 tankers through its four borders. During the normal time, such service was very limited for transporting stone and fry ash, raw materials for cement industries and different projects.
After the lockdown was imposed across the country, the loss-incurring train operator was allowed to keep cargo services operative only at Chattogram port.
Later, it was allowed to introduce several cargo and freight services upon permission from the government's high-ups to facilitate transport of seasonal crops, foods and vegetables from different parts of the country due to suspension of road transport.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh Railway is going to carry sacrificial animals for the upcoming Eid-ul-Azha after 12 years.
Railways minister Nurul Islam Sujan said that following a request from the fisheries and livestock ministry, they had taken the decision to facilitate the farmers, the businesspeople and the buyers with safe carrying of animals during the coronavirus outbreak.
At a press conference, he also said that the BR would carry the sacrificial animals like cows, goats and lambs from the northern and western districts to Dhaka and Chattogram.
‘We’ll start carrying cattle as per demand,’ he said, adding that each of these freight trains could carry 400 to 500 animals at a time.
The cost of carrying a cow from Gaibandha, Pabna, or Kushtia to Chattogram would be maximum Tk 2,500 and to Dhaka would be Tk 1,500 to Tk 2000, he said.
According to Railway’s additional director general (operation) Mia Jahan, railway previously carried sacrificial animals from Dewanganj to Kamalapur station in Dhaka in 2008.
This year the sacrificial animals would be carried by 8-wheel wagons, he added.
The sacrificial animals would be carried from Rajshahi, Kushtia, Meherpur, Chapainawabganj, Ullapara, Dewanganj, Pabna, Faridpur, Jamalpur and Mymensingh to Dhaka and Chattogram, he said.
Nurul Islam Sujan said that the animals would be carried in wagons and each of these freight trains would have 25 to 30 wagons.
A metre gauge wagon can carry 16 cows and a broad gauge wagon can carry 20 to 21 cows, he said.
Railway officials said that around 86 goats could be carried in a wagon.
‘The date, route and stations of the service will be finalised through discussing with the Department of Livestock Services and businesspeople,’ he said.