EDITORIAL : THE DAILY STAR, BANGLADESH

             

 

Feuding in BCL, again

Demands high level intervention

The internecine conflict within Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) faction seems to surface intermittently. Earlier, when such intra-organisational clashes took a nasty turn leading to sporadic eruption of violence on different university campuses, those prompted a flurry of action among the top leadership of the ruling Awami League. Even the prime minister and Awami League president Sheikh Hasina would issue serious warnings to the student body to behave followed by expulsions at different levels of its leadership.

The directives from Sheikh Hasina would result in a temporary lull. Some probe bodies, too, were formed. Few of those came up with any concrete results and neither did those leave any impact on the behaviour of BCL.

In reality, the measures taken by the ruling party to discipline the student body basically failed to remove the root cause of the factional feuds within it that had largely to do with tender and admission business. It is worthwhile to mention here that the administrative building of the university itself and some government departments are potential sources of this tender business.

In the latest outbreak of violence at the Mohsin Hall of DU, which caused injury to around 70 students, circumstances point to that direction.

Alarmingly, in most of these turf wars within BCL, lethal weapons including firearms are being used with abandon. That should provide enough reason for the ruling Awami League not to look at BCL feuds purely from the angle of organisational discipline but beyond it reflecting on the credibility of the government. It is a serious law and order issue as well and deserves to be dealt with accordingly.

We expect that the probe body formed by the DU authority to look into the incident would be able to find out the real causes of Tuesday's campus violence and home in on the culprits behind it. At this point, we would also like to emphasise that the answer to the problem of internal feud in BCL demands more than just these measures. So, we hope that the ruling party will intervene in the matter to solve the festering issue before it deteriorates any further.

Pending railway projects

Upgrade Dhaka-Chittagong route

The importance of railway communications between Dhaka-Chittagong needs hardly any elaboration. But three major projects launched, four to five years ago to modernize the Dhaka-Chittagong rail link, hardly moved forward. The projects are: Tongi-Bhairab bazaar double line, Laksam-Chinki Astana double line and Akhaura-Laksam double line.

The ambitious plan includes, upgrading the 196-kilometer single track of the 320-kilometer route to double track, rehabilitating the existing tracks, improving signaling system and modernizing the stations.

The projects undoubtedly touch all areas that need to be improved to establish a better communications facility between the two important cities. Especially the plan to introduce double-line track replacing the current single-line track is a pragmatic decision. Single-line tracks have long been a hindrance to smooth running of trains resulting in delays of arrival and departure of passenger and cargo trains and also causing accidents along the track and even at stations.

The government and its funding agency the Asian Development Bank have to coordinate more to execute the projects. Although the ADB gave a 100 million dollar, half of the total estimated cost of the project, as loan for the project in April 2007, the money remains unused. This delay has pushed up the project cost by Tk.250 crore.

A long time elapsed since the tendering process and technical evaluation started in December 2007 but abandoned in September 2009. A fresh tender was floated in April 2010 and awaiting decision of the concerned.

We like to point out that such essential projects should have received utmost consideration of the parties involved in implementing them. The government should in all earnest speed up the work process and get on with development work without any further delay.

Belated actions not only push up the cost of projects it also delay advancement of a vital communications link causing considerable loss to commuters and businesses.