Maglev Melodrama: Act 11

I agree that any large-scale project does create opportunities for jobs and services. However, I believe we could go for far more useful and socially sound investment in agriculture, sanitary and pure water supply or even irrigation as more effective ways to utilise the manpower resources of Bangladesh.

Regarding jobs in the manufacture of components, in my opinion even for the old diesel and diesel electric locomotives that we use in Bangladesh Railway the cost of local components is probably below ten percent of the cost of imported spares. Further, any company that is supposed or proposed to assist in Maglev railway will have to be hopeful about its future, as this is a basic sales approach.

What we need is to initiate an exercise between a joint Bangladesh Railway and a BUET team of engineers and other interested (not commercially interested of course) persons to carry out an up front evaluation of the Chinese project which has a fairly close social and environmental parallel to Bangladesh. Based on this, we should go for detailed techno-economic study to evaluate if the proposal has a cost benefit advantage. The latest news item in 'Newsweek International" is that China has stopped extension of the proposed "Maglev" railway beyond the thirty or so kilometres commissioned! The reason for this needs to be analysed in depth before going further.