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CU students face transport crisis

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Golam Rosul Bhoyan, CU:
Chittagong University (CU), situated on a vast tract of land at Fathepur in Hathazari upazila, is nearly 22 miles away from Chittagong city. It is surrounded by hills and scenic beauty and also very attractive to tourists.
About 20 thousand students and 3 thousand teachers and employees of the university are facing acute transport problem in the absence of adequate buses and shuttle trains for a long time.
For these large number students, the university has only six male and three female dormitories where only eight thousand students are accommodated. The rest of the students come from Chittagong city and the adjacent villages. Shuttle trains, buses and minibuses are their main mode of transport.
The CU authorities have contacted with Bangladesh Railways to provide two shuttle trains on monthly basis payment. These two shuttle trains are coming and going twelve times a day from city to campus and campus to city. Each shuttle train has only six compartments for students. So it is too inadequate for the huge number of students.
Barsha Chakma, a Masters student of Oriental Language department said, "I come to the campus daily by shuttle train. I enjoy it but sometimes feel bore when a large number of students throng into it. Sometimes it embarrasses me like other female students.
When the university is closed on any occasion, the authorities keep these two shuttle trains stop. As a result, many students who are staying at dormitories and go to the town for tuition and other purposes face serious transport problem.
Nazrul Islam, a 4th year of Student of Islamic History and Culture and a resident student of Suhrawardy Hall said, "I have a tuition at Nasirabad of Chittagong city and I go there by shuttle train. When the university is closed I have to pay a good amount of money for private transport to go to the city.
Besides, the shuttle train, a few number of minibuses (private transport) are available on the campus. But these minibuses are too much costly for the students. The minibuses namely-- Tari-- are also risky as Chittagong-Hathazari road is very narrow. Rangamati and Khagrachhari bound buses and trucks ply on the road with high speed and often accidents occur in this road. For this, students feared to go by minibuses but they have no other alternative.
Like students, teachers and employees of the university are also facing transport problem. Md. Jahidur Rahman, an assistant teacher of History department said, "The university authorities have provided us with sufficient number of buses. We feel comfort to shuttle between the campus and city. But when the drivers of the buses drive the buses recklessly, we feel insecure of our lives."
CU Vice-chancellor Professor Anwarul Azim Arif admitting the transport problem said, "We know about the matter. University authorities have already increased the number of teacher's buses and compartments of the shuttle train. We hope in future we can remove the transport problem of the university."