A law for the Bangladesh Railway (BR) is being amended 133 years after it was enacted in 1890.
The BR has drafted the 'Bangladesh Railway Amendment Act' with the aid of the Infrastructure Investment Facilitation Company (IIFC) as it had failed to get a private firm after repeated rounds of bidding.
Sources say the new act has rather been drafted to amend the old one as it proposes changes mostly in the amount of fines and duration of penalty.
The British-made law has kept the amount of fines and punishment too paltry.
The draft also suggests operational changes, incorporating modern services like high-speed train, electric train and electric traction to cope with the demand of the present time.
Sources say the proposed law has sought to increase the amount of fines from 50 paisa to Tk 2,000 as punishment varies according to the gravity of the offence.
The lowest fine of Tk 2,000 has been proposed for availing a train service without ticket and the highest Tk 10,000 for crime like threatening rail service or passengers' lives.
Both fines and the highest two years' imprisonment have been proposed in cases like opening up unauthorised rail crossings that have caused severe train accidents in recent times.
The BR entrusted the IIFC with the task to draft a new act in August 2020.
Earlier, it failed to rope any consultant in the job after an expression of interest was invited four times since 2017.
No international firm was invited to the bidding as the budget for such work was tiny, official sources said.
The existing railway act was modified in 1935. Pakistan inherited its authority from the Indian Independence Act 1947.
Later, Bangladesh got its ownership after its independence in 1971.
India replaced the act with the Indian Railway Act 1989.
"We proposed for a new act but after consultation with all concerned, decision was made to modernise the act," said an official wishing not to be named.
"Amendment can serve the purpose now. So, it's rather an amendment, and not the replacement of the old one."
The BR received the draft on August 29 and then sent it to railways ministry for necessary steps to discuss its various sections with the ministries concerned.
For a lack of experts to amend the multidisciplinary and complex system of the railway, sources say, the BR has no option but to amend the act.
The firm must know about the labyrinth of the railway and its operation apart from familiarity with terminology and expertise to draft a new law, they add.
