The automation and reform initiatives of the Bangladesh Railway (BR) have faced a setback due to large-scale anomalies in implementation of the project concerned and shortage of required manpower, insiders said.
In this context, the BR has recently sought more funds and time extension for completing the reform project.
Insiders also said the project implementers have committed massive irregularities in execution of the project during the last 12 years and in its procurement.
Besides, the BR has no IT department or ample IT professionals. But the agency has taken the project to make its services completely automated, they noted.
Over the last 12 years, the BR has failed to ensure the automation of its services despite available financial supports from the government and the project lender - the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
Officials concerned said the BR has brought some policy-related reforms.
But it has failed to introduce enterprise resources planning (ERP) as well as automation in income and expenditure, budgeting, fleet management etc.
The BR procured software for the automation system about three years ago. But it procured the necessary hardware nearly after three years of the software procurement.
Now, these software and hardware are not matching properly due to the gap in time of their production and procurement.
The present project personnel have been facing difficulties to develop the automation system for the BR due to the faulty procurement and irregularities in project execution, they added.
"When the BR gave us the responsibility of completing the remaining work of the project, we were not able to adjust the equipments with the software for automation," said an official.
All of those have now become almost useless, he also said.
"It is interesting that the authority did not give responsibility to an appropriate person for executing the project. The person responsible for it was a civil engineer."
"There was no manpower with IT background, like computer engineer, in it," he added.
The government took the project at a cost of Tk 2.52 billion in 2006 with the support of ADB for bringing necessary reforms in the BR and automating its all activities.
The aim of the project was to ensure better services for the consumers as well as proper planning for development of the country's lone railway service provider.
Meanwhile, the BR has recently sought revision of the project from the Planning Commission for the second time, increasing its cost and extending the implementation deadline for one more year.
It has sought Tk 3.14 billion for executing the project, which is 25 per cent higher than the original cost of Tk 2.51 billion.
The government has already revised the project once and extended the project implementation timeline four times from July 2006 to June 2018.
A senior BR official said the reform project had been affected mainly due to lack of appropriate IT manpower for operating the automation system.
"We do not have any IT department in the organisation. The entire data of the BR, its ERP and budget etc will come under an umbrella through the automated system. But we do not have the capacity to run those."
The official also said the BR sent a proposal to the Ministry of Public Administration nearly a year ago for creating posts for its IT department.
However, the ministry has not yet endorsed it, he added.
