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CU Transport Crisis

Only 6 shuttle trains for over 12000 non-resident students

Nur Uddin Alamgir, etg
Indifferent attitude of the authorities to transport crisis has been forcing several thousand students of Chittagong University (CU) to risk their lives while travelling between the university campus and the city everyday.
Thursday's tragic demise ’of Mahmudul Hasan Mamun, a third year student of Accounting department, was yet another reminder to the crisis the CU students have been facing since long.
Earlier, Sabina Yasmin, a third year student of CU Bangla department, was also crushed under the wheels of a shuttle train at CU Railway Station while trying to get oq a traipgn August l$,20Q^t • Besides; inci’derns'-' of getting* 'injured aftqr falling o'ff'th’e rooftop'r and the staircases of the shuttle trains takes place very often though most of them remain unreported.
Three people, including a student of Finance department, got injured when he fell off the rooftop
of a city-bound shuttle train on November 30 last year. Cables of satellite connections threw them off the rooftop near Sholoshahar Railway Station.
Sources at die university said the students are forced to stay in the city and travel up to the university risking their lives everyday since the university authorities in nine dormitories can provide accommodation to some 4500 out of 18,000 students studying in 35 departments under six faculties and three institutes at the university.
Besides, around 1,000 male students can stay at about 30 cottages, privately owned rented house alongside the campus, when the rest live in the city, some 22 . Momoes 9? the campus ,
••'••■Phc noh it'S sJue-ht Students-< \ qunibWmg oveUl?,^ travel bC ,
shuttle trains to and from the university campus and the city while some minibuses named Tori ply between the university rail station and New Market in the city everyday.
The shuttle trains each with seven to nine 120-seat compartments carry students more than two to three times of its capacity in rush hours everyday, said the sources.
When the trains leave Sholoshahar Railway Station in the city in the morning or CU Railway Station in the afternoon, no space is left to allow even a single person to stand inside the compartments, students alleged.
Shaheda Akter, a student of Biological Science department, alleged that if the female students are late, they cannot travel due to the jam-packed condition inside the compartment.
The situation forces the male
Sumon Sharma, a BBA student, said he is bound to travel on the rooftop everyday as he resides with his parents at their Patenga residence, at the south end of the city.
He said if the authorities don't
increase the number of the shuttle trains and its compartments the crisis would not be met soon.
Sources said the authorities only introduced two new trips of the shuttle trains on March 9,2007 to mitigate the problem.
When contacted, CU Vice Chancellor Prof M Badiul Alam told The Daily Star that the authorities at a high level meeting on September 27, 2007 proposed the railway authorities to introduce an inter-city train in this section.
“But, the railway authorities think it is not possible at this moment since the existing tracks in this route are not fit enough to run trains with additional compartments,'said the VC.
However, the VC along with a team would meet the higher authorities in the ministry in the first week of the next month to this end, he added.
“We have taken the matter seriously and hope that the present caretaker government would also help us in this regard," he said.