Concrete sleeper plant in Chhatak resumes operation

The country’s lone state-run concrete sleeper plant at Chhatak in Sunamganj resumed operation after being closed for the last four months.

However, the plant has been witnessing frequent shortage of raw materials and mechanical failure most of the time.

The factory has to halt the production process now and then, and could not run for a stretch of 12-month in the last five years, sources said.

The plant resumed its operation on September 7 after being declared shut down on May 2 this year.

Under the Bangladesh Railway (BR), the concrete sleeper plant was set up in 1988 at Chhatak with a long-term plan to replace the wooden sleepers in phases throughout the country.

Initially, the plant started with an annual target of producing 50,000 pieces of sleepers, but now it has a capacity of producing 90,000 pieces.

At the beginning, the state-run factory had run well for years, but as early as the regular supply of raw materials ceased, things got stumbled on occasions.

The state-run factory suffers much as production has to be suspended on occasions every year due to the dilly delay in importing Rapid Hardening Cement, MCI (malleable caste iron) and High Tensile Steel Wire from India, plant officials said.

The sole local supplier of Rapid Hardening Cement – one of the main ingredients in making concrete sleepers – is the Chhatak Cement Factory (CCF), the first and oldest cement factory in Bangladesh.

“However, the CCF has not been facilitating the Chatak Concrete Sleeper Plant well. It has proved itself to be incapable of meeting the demand of raw materials of the plant,” said Nazmul Hasan, assistant executive engineer in the plant from BR.

He said: “With the existing amount of Golden Brand’s Rapid Hardening Cement, we can make 3,500 pieces of concrete sleepers. We are yet to receive 355 cement bags from CCF.”

“If we get a regular supply of raw materials, we can produce more than 200 pieces of concrete sleepers a day and more than 50,000 a year,” he further said.

“With our existing lot, we can operate the factory for one month only. We are facing these problems deliberately and had requested the authorities concern to take measures to mitigate the crisis,” Nazmul Hasan added.