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Railway Men’s Store, a company owned by railway employees, leases 76,112 square feet of Bangladesh Railway (BR) land on Chattogram’s Station Road at Tk8.75 a square foot a year, after an 80% discount on the licence fee.
Despite the discount, the company owed BR Tk30.19 lakh as of June 2025, according to its accounts. Shareholders have received no dividend since the 2022-23 fiscal year.
Executive Director Syed Shahabuddin Shamim, 66, who joined on Tk500 a month in the 1980s, has stayed on past the retirement age of 59 and employs his brother, nephew and other relatives.
He says he now earns Tk5-7 lakh a month, crediting business contacts made at the company’s former bar and fees from shop ownership transfers in the market built on the leased land.
From Tk500 a month to frequent flyer
Shamim joined the company as an upper division assistant while studying at Chittagong University. He now has businesses in Khatunganj and Dhaka, and travels between Chattogram and Dhaka by air. He is a former general secretary of the Bangladesh Chess Federation and president of Chittagong Mohammedan Sporting Club.
“I joined at a salary of Tk500 as an upper division assistant,” he told the Daily Sun, adding, “But now I earn Tk5-7 lakh per month. I now fly from Chattogram to Dhaka by plane. I know the way how to earn money.”
Asked how, he said, “The Men’s Store earlier had a petrol pump and a liquor bar at the place of the market. Many aristocratic people came to the bar and I got acquainted with them as I was the employee of the bar. I used to sit with them and learn business techniques and extended partnership.”
He added, “During the transfer of ownership of shops in our market, you can make a big gain. When someone wants to quit business and sell the shop, if you can be an intermediary, you can make money.
Besides, during the transfer of ownership, they have to come to the Men’s Store. There is Tk25,000 as a transfer. But we have some invisible costs, as different state agencies come to us. We have managed them. We then come to charge them more than the estimated fee as they are selling a shop and making million profits.”
Shamim’s friends in Chattogram said his father was a railway port staff member from a needy family. They said the Men’s Store was the source of his economic power, and that his involvement in politics across governments helped him become a dominant figure in railway and sports circles in Chattogram.
Shamim said his uncle, Shofiullah Ahmed, was manager of the Men’s Store when he joined. After his uncle retired, he became manager, ahead of his senior Tajul Islam, who had joined as assistant manager a few days after him. The post of executive director was later created for him.
History of the lease
In 1911, the Assam Bengal Railway Company leased the land at a token Tk1 to the Assam Bengal Railways Employees Society, as its staff had no service benefits.
The society was renamed Railway Men’s Store in 1952 and later registered under the Companies Act, with railway staff as shareholders.
In 1982, the Railway Board was brought under the Communication Ministry and its staff moved to government pay scales and service benefits, but the earlier benefits under the company and the board were not cancelled.
The company sells shares to railway staff at Tk5 each, and a shareholder may buy up to 3,000. It has 50 lakh shares and 4,096 shareholders, most of them retired employees.
The land was leased at an 80% discount, but BR cut the discount to 50% of the market price in 2012, and the company went to court to stop the change.
Land sold on to third parties
A railway estate order issued on 2 November 1989 permitted the company to build a high-rise market. A 2019-20 audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General’s office, however, noted that the original lease prohibited changing the nature of the land.
The audit said the company’s board decided on 16 December 2005 and 5 January 2006 to build a multi-storey building on 33,353 square feet of the leased land. Shamim signed a contract with M/S Atco Holdings Ltd and Real Estate Private Syndicate. The developers then contracted Bashudha Builders, and the contract showed Men’s Store as the landowner, although the land belongs to BR. The developers sold space in the market to different companies for 99 years, and BR lost control of the land as a result. The market, known locally as Fall Mandi, now has 428 shops, and the company has an office inside it.
Md Faruk, who has a 225-square-foot shop named HM Fruits International, said, “I am a tenant in the market. I pay Tk60,000 monthly as rent to the owner of the space.”
Faruk’s rent works out at about Tk267 a square foot a month, compared with the Tk8.75 a year the company pays BR for open land.
Shamim said, “The contract is not illegal. We have permission to construct high-rise buildings. But why could the Men’s Store itself construct the market because it did not have the money.” He said the company was paid sign-off money of more than Tk30 lakh and receives Tk3-8 a square foot from shop owners as market salami, in addition to ownership transfer fees.
Minutes of the company’s 110th annual general meeting, held on 22 July 2022, record that income tax authorities had frozen its bank accounts. Shamim said, “Income tax people came to the market and asked different tenants about the current fares. They found that the fare is high. They thought we were earning the fare, which actually the people who bought possession are getting. They subsequently objected to our income and locked our account. We cannot withdraw money. That’s why our bank transaction is off. I myself handle the money at my own risk.”
Large holding, small earnings
The company holds more than one lakh square feet of land and space in Dhaka and Chattogram, but its accounts show modest earnings, and no profit has been shared with shareholders since 2022-23. The 2020-21 report showed Tk2.14 crore due to BR as lease money and other fees. The 2021-22 and 2022-23 annual reports show profits of Tk23.24 lakh and Tk23.30 lakh respectively.
Accountant Syed Niaz Morshed told the Daily Sun on 10 September, “We are disbursing the profit of 2021-22 and 2022-23 together. A total of Tk65 lakh will be disbursed.”
Family on the payroll
The company follows government rules on pay and allowances, but Shamim is 66 against a retirement age of 59.
“I don’t want to be with the company,” he said. “I went to retirement six years ago, but they have extended my job tenure six times. Just a few days ago, I was given an extension for one year.”
The company has ten staff. Shamim says he is a ninth-grade officer, withdraws Tk78,000 a month and has a car and fuel facility, which he does not use. Recruitment has no formal system; approval of the management board is enough.
His brother Syed Mainuddin Liton is an office assistant, and his nephew Kazi Niaz Morshed is the accountant. Assistant manager Lutfur Rahman, who recently retired, is his brother-in-law.
On Liton’s hiring, Shamim said, “Liton is well educated. I wanted a job for him in the railway but they turned down my proposal. They were asking for Tk5 lakh. I hired him for my company as the management body approved. I want to keep him in my position before leaving the job.”
On his nephew, he said, “Niaz is a university graduate. He actually does not like the job. He always makes complaint that he got only Tk25,000 a month to his aunty. Your salary is low but there are yearly 8-10 ownership transfer requests in our market and if you can even Tk10 lakh in per transfer, how much is your income.”
BR has also leased a 1,844-square-foot restaurant, Biroti, at Kamalapur station to the company. Shamim’s son, Sayeed, runs it. Shamim said the Men’s Store leased it to a company named Innova and that Sayeed manages it on that company’s behalf.
Officials respond
The company has a ten-member executive committee of elected and ex-officio members.
Abidur Rahman, project director of the Railway Connectivity Improvement Project and a company director, said, “I was vice chairman only for three years. But I cannot say what happened as I detached from it for the last three years. I requested the DG sir to remove me from the post. But the process is yet to be done.”
Chairman Md Suboktogin said, “Men’s Store had an ugly past. Now we want to forget it and want to move forward with it.” State Minister for Railways Habibur Rashid Habib said he was not aware of the matter and could take action once he had the information.