Train operations to face no disruption for granting special trains: BR

Bangladesh Railway (BR) in a statement today (18 July) said there will be no disruption of normal train services due to approving the operation of four pairs of special trains tomorrow (19 July) following the Jamaat-e-Islami's application on the occasion of its grand rally.

In the statement, BR said misleading information is being observed on various social media platforms regarding the issue.

It said misleading information is being spread on social media without knowing the history or precedent of Bangladesh Railway's permission to operate special trains on the occasion of political parties' applications.

In the past, there are precedents of Bangladesh Railway operating special trains on the occasion of major programmes of various political parties.

It is a casual job of Bangladesh Railway to grant permission to operate special trains on the occasion of political parties' public gatherings or similar programmes, subject to collection of a fixed fare, in the context of their applications.

If permission is not given to operate such special trains, it becomes very difficult for Bangladesh Railways to control ticketless passengers on regular trains plying on various routes.

In that case, the leaders and activists of political parties do not get enough time and opportunity to buy tickets to go to the desired destination, so the tendency to travel without tickets increases.

This deprives Bangladesh Railways of the desired revenue income.

On the other hand, by granting permission to operate special trains, party leaders and activists will be able to travel on the trains subject to payment of a fixed fare.

In this, Bangladesh Railway will be able to earn the desired revenue, and the general passengers of other trains will also be relieved of additional suffering.

The said four pairs of special trains will be operated by the designated rakes that have weekly off-days. Moreover, since Saturday is a weekly holiday, the normal demand of passengers is usually low.

As a result, the journey of any regularly running train will not be disrupted for the operation of these trains, it will not have any impact on the general passengers regularly travelling on these routes.

On the occasion of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami rally, they paid the fare of the special train in advance with about Tk32 lakhs in cash, which increased the income of the railway.

Basically, this is a commercial decision of Bangladesh Railway, it has nothing to do with party politics.

The decision has been taken following the previous prevailing rules. In the future, a similar decision will be taken in view of the application of any political party.

There is no scope for spreading confusion or propaganda on this issue, it said.