Bangladesh: Railway Sector Investment Program (Tranches 1, 2, and 4)

To support its Railway Sector Program and Investment Plan for 2007–2013, the government asked Asian Development Bank (ADB) for a $430 million multitranche financing facility (MFF) over 5 years. Comprised of five loans, the MFF would fund the Railway Sector Investment Program to improve railway sector performance. The program’s reform project would implement sector policy, organizational, and legal reforms to transform Bangladesh Railways to a commercially focused organization and would improve governance and accountability in the railway sector.

The program’s investment project, meanwhile, would improve rail infrastructure and rolling stock capacity to solve capacity bottlenecks, and investments would be economically and financially viable. The reform and investment projects were linked as approval of tranche release was dependent on the implementation of specific reform actions. Tranche 1 of the MFF was comprised of an investment loan and a reform program loan, while the other three tranches comprised of pure investment loans. The subject of this validation is the progress under the MFF’s tranches 1, 2, and 4, as described in the project completion report (PCR). IED overall assessment: Less than successful.