Bangladesh Railway is working on future infrastructure development and maintenance of railways. In this regard the government is going to set up modern rolling stock maintenance workshop for maintenance of carriages and wagons in the southern part of the country.
A contract has been signed for survey verification, detailed design and necessary documents for construction of workshop at Rajbari. At present maintenance of rolling stock (meter gauge/ broad gauge carriage and wagon) is going on at Saidpur Carriage and Wagon Shop.
Bangladesh Railway has awarded a contract worth about Tk 27 crore for the appointment of a consultant to carry out a survey for the construction of a new carriage and wagon workshop at Rajbari. The contract for 16 months in two phases has been signed with France’s Systra SA and Development Design Consultants Limited.
Bangladesh Railway Chief Mechanical Engineer (West) Muhammad Kudrat-e-Khuda and Systra SA Managing Director Hari Somalraju signed the agreement on behalf of their respective organizations at the Rail Bhaban Conference room in the capital on Wednesday.
Railways Minister Nurul Islma Sujan said, “With the establishment of this factory in Rajbari, we will be able to repair the existing and future coaches and wagons of our fleet here. As a result of the Padma Bridge rail connection, communication will be established with Rajbari and different regions of the country, so it will be possible to repair coaches and wagons and run them all over the country from here. Rail link will be established in every district. A link will also be established with the Trans Asian Railway.
“Out of 10 priority projects of the government, two are underway in railways. One is Dohazari to Cox's Bazar and another one is Padma Bridge Rail Link Project. Five of the eight intersection points with India have been commissioned. Initiatives have been taken to facilitate trade and travel with neighbouring countries,” he added.
To increase the capacity of our rail, we have taken the initiative to convert all single lines into double ones. Plans have been taken to construct double line from Joydevpur to Ishwardi, Khulna to Darshana, Ishwardi to Parbatipur, Sujan said further.
This project cost has been fixed at Tk 30.05 crore, and around Tk 23.98 crore has been estimated for survey. As per the agreement, the work will be completed in two phases. The duration of each phase of work is eight months. The first phase will be to validate the survey and the second phase will be to prepare the detailed design and necessary documents.
