The Bangladesh Railway is having a hard time finding a contractor to repair 21 of its metre-gauge locomotives, despite floating tenders three times.

Even after offering a high amount, which is almost half the price of a new locomotive, the Railway could not attract any contractor interested in repairing the old engines that have all passed their economic life cycles.

As it stands, a 42-month-long project for the repairing work is yet to start and there are only six months left to implement it.

Now, a group of railway officials want to announce the project complete, leaving it unfinished, while another group suggests overhauling the locomotives by Railway's own manpower.

Stakeholders and some bidders said this is the result of the Railway's fragmented procurement system.

Contractors are not interested in this project as required spare parts and components of the project are not available in the market.

When asked, Dhirendra Nath Mazumder, director general at Bangladesh Railway, told The Business Standard that they are planning to float the tender one more time. However, he did not comment on why contractors are not participating in the bidding.

At present, the Railway has 92 broad-gauge active locomotives and 171 metre-gauge locomotives, of which 157 are active.

According to the mechanical data, the economic lives of 140 metre-gauge and 43 broad gauge locomotives have already expired.

Sources said Bangladesh Railway decided to overhaul its 21-locomotives that were procured in 1995 from Garman to meet the current locomotive engine crisis in the country.

The executive committee of the National Economic Council passed the project giving a timeline to complete it by the end of December 2022.

Bangladesh Railway called the first tender On 11 November 2019, when 14 tender documents were sold and a lone bidder submitted papers.

However, the bidder was found ineligible on technical grounds.

Later, on 2 February and 2 May 2 of 2021, BR floated the same tender for the second and third time relaxing some conditions. But this time, not a single bidder submitted the tender though 20 tender documents were sold.

Faced with the dilemma, the project implementation committee (PIC) on 17 November 17 2021, decided to announce the project complete leaving it unfinished.

However, in the project steering committee (PSC) meeting on 2 February 2 this year, the additional director general of Bangladesh Railway proposed to repair 3-4 locomotives each year with the railway's manpower through its revenue budget.

"It will help the railway to reduce the cost and will improve the manpower's skills as well," he said in the meeting.

Project Director Tabassum Binte Islam supported the ADG's (rolling stock) proposal and said that it will cost only Tk3.5 crore to Tk5 crore to repair each locomotive if it is done by the railway's manpower.

However, the meeting ended up with two suggestions—either to announce the project was complete leaving it unfinished or to take necessary actions to fix the locomotives with the money from the railway's revenue budget.

But Railway's Director-General Dhirendra Nath Mazumder has opted for floating the tender one more time before going in either direction, discussed in the meeting.

He also said that a committee has been formed to find out the best way out for the project.