MR Amin, Chattogram

As a result of illegal passenger transportation across the country, Bangladesh Railway is losing 500 crores of revenue every year. All efforts to stop the transportation of passengers without tickets have failed.

Recently, the catering license of 2 trains has been canceled due to illegal passenger transport in the train's dining car, but the other routes are still running.

The stakeholders are seeing the need to take new strategies to increase the income of this service organization. Due to the direct involvement of some dishonest officials in charge of railways, this anarchy cannot be prevented.

However, if the monitoring in this sector is increased, it is possible to further reduce the subsidy of the railway and many people think that the money could be used for various developmental worksAccording to Rail Bhawan, the expenditure of Bangladesh Railways in the financial year 2022-23 was Tk 3 thousand 307 crores. At the same time, it earned 1 thousand 783 crore rupees. That is, the railway has spent 1 thousand 524 crores more than the income. If only a little stricter attention was paid to the illegal passenger transport, the subsidy could have been reduced by another 500 crore rupeesHow Illegal Passengers Board Trains: Trains require some essential personnel to operate trains to ensure safe passenger service.

All of them are salaried employees. But still they carry illegal passengers on contractual fares in trains for their own benefit. Generally 2 types of illegal passengers board the train. Many are forced and many others to take the advantage of travel with less money. They travel by train illegally by contracting with those employees. Usually an intercity train has 2 dining cars. 50 to 60 people are carried in each train by 25 to 30 people in each car and 50 to 60 people in each trainIn particular, it is known that police on duty in the car is 15 to 20 people, RNB 8/10 people, onboard attendant 50/60 people, 2 guards 5/6 people, power car operator 10/12 people, electrician 10/12 people, travel suiting staff. 4/5 people, some drivers sometimes make 2/1 people. Such information was obtained from the statements of several officials of the railways and the on-site visit to the station. Altogether 150 to 200 passengers travel illegally in each intercity train. In Bangladesh there are 110 intercity trains with 150 people and 16 thousand 500 illegal passengers daily. Intercity trains carry about 5.5 million illegal passengers even if one day a week is excluded from the closure. 500 taka per person, but the amount of money is about 300 crore taka. On the other hand, several local trains including 130 mail, express and demus are running across the country. Illegal passenger transport in these trains is not less.

4 trains are also running from Dhaka to Egar Sindhu Dhaka to Kishoreganj (737,738,749,750) Howr Express Dhaka to Sylhet (777,778), Mahanagar Express (Dhaka to Chittagong 722), Jamuna, Mohanganj, Coast, Jayantika, Kishoreganj TTE is not booked on many trains including Express and Sonar Bangla and Suvarna Express. Where the concerned officials take huge sums of money on weekly and monthly basis through the food truck people and stewards. Railways have been deprived of revenue of at least 200 crore rupees annually through illegal passenger transport in these vehicles.

All in all, the railways and the government have lost 8000 crores of revenue in 16 years as 500 crores of taka per year only in ticketless passenger transport across the countryWhen asked about this, Director General (DG) of Bangladesh Railways Sardar Shahadat Ali said, "We are vocal against not only illegal passenger transport, but any irregularity. The catering service of two trains has been canceled for the crime of transporting passengers without tickets."

Action will be taken against all those who are involved in this workNote that, as of 2008, about 73.3 percent of the total revenue of the railways came from intercity trains. Bangladesh Railway currently has 110 or 55 pairs of intercity trains in 2 regions (East and West). Among them, 54 in the eastern region and 56 in the western region.