Bangladesh has attained the capacity of producing rail coaches and wagons locally and as part of it, the government is going to establish the country’s first-ever carriage shop at Saidpur in Nilphamari district. After installation of the carriage shop, the country would be able to meet the growing demand of rail coaches and wagons and save huge foreign currencies by reducing import dependence, Bangladesh Railway sources said.
The country's biggest railway workshop run by Bangladesh Railway (BR) located at Saidpur is going to have a new carriage shop where coaches and wagons will be produced locally. A feasibility study on establishment of the shop will start soon. As part of the process, BR has invited letter of intention from competent consultants to appoint as international consultant to construct a railway carriage at the workshop. In this connection, an advertisement signed by chief mechanical engineer (west) of BR Mrinal Kanti Banik has been published in different dailies.
BR source said, the organization with the financial help from Exim Bank of India will construct the carriage workshop to increase the capacity of BR and the project will soon after completion of the procedures, the source added. While inaugurating a new intercity train service on Dhaka-Panchagarh route recently, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina emphasized on enhancing country’s capacity to build passenger coaches and wagons for Bangladesh Railway.
Mentionable, the BR workshop was constructed on 800 acres of land during 1870. The workshop has 25 different shops where railway coaches are repaired and almost 1200 types of machineries are being manufactured. In 1993, the then government stopped the initiative of manufacturing rail coaches. But the present government has taken a new policy to reduce import dependence by manufacturing coaches and wagons.
According to BR, to establish such project, an agreement was signed with Indian authority in 2016. During last two years, massive survey was conducted. Now, the local authority is prepared to appoint experts to finalize the type and pattern of the plant. According to Saidpur Railway Factory Divisional Supervisor (DS) Md Joydul Islam, the process to construct carriage shop has already been completed. A signboard is also hanged at the demarked area inside the workshop.
To this end, BR secretary MD Mofazzol Hossain told Bangladesh Post that, this is totally a new project in the country. Appointing a consultant is under process.
‘Based on the consultant advice, we will know our volume of work and details of manpower. This will take at least two to three fiscal to get the output from the carriage shop’, he added.
According to Saidpur Railway Workshop information, to get smooth output of the workshop and carriage manufacturing, the workshop needs new work force as it’s already suffering from actuate shortage of manpower for long. BR director general (west) Khandaker Shadiul Islam told Bangladesh Post that once we only used this workshop for coaches and wagon repair, but as we are looking forward to bring 64 districts under railway network, we will need huge passenger coaches.
‘Now we are going to establish carriage shop where we will manufacture coaches and wagon locally. We already finalize the area of 20 acres inside the workshop.’- he added.
