The reconstruction of the Rajshahi University Motihar Hall, a dormitory for its male students, has not yet been completed, leaving the students to suffer more from the existing accommodation crisis at the institution.
The university students blamed that the authorities were negligent in carrying out the construction work sooner.
This correspondent, during his visit to the site, found that the construction of only one of the three buildings, to be built according to the architectural design of the hall, had just been finished.
According to its design, passed by the university authorities in 2008, the hall will have three three-storey buildings.
Each of these buildings will have 27 rooms with 108 seats, said the concerned sources.
The authorities said that they were now furnishing the newly-built building of the Motihar Hall with beds, desks and other furniture after which seats would be allotted to the students.
RU registrar Abdul Bari said, ‘we will allow the students to move in as soon as we complete putting furniture in it.’
They, however, started attaching its students to the hall from the 2009-10 session.
According to the university rules, once the students are attached to a particular hall they usually do not get allotment of seats to any other hall and so have to wait until seats are available for them at that hall.
Imrul Hossain, a finance and banking first year student who got attachment to the Motihar Hall and stayed at a mess at Binodpur, an area adjacent to the university, said that it was hard for the students from insolvent families to live outside the campus.
‘We don’t afford to stay at a mess which is far more costly than the university halls in terms of the seat rent and the money you need to buy food,’ he said.
Sayed Roni, a second year library management and information science student and also attached to the Motihar Hall, criticised the slackness of the authorities in this regard.
‘If they were really intent they could finish the whole task within a few months,’ said a chagrined Roni, who was also staying at a Binodpur mess.
RU chief engineer Abdur Rahim said that the work was delayed mainly by the inadequate fund supplies by the authorities.
‘The funding was neither sufficient nor on time,’ he said.
RU vice-chancellor Abdus Sobhan informed New Age that steps were underway to speed up the reconstruction work.
The Motihar Hall, constructed in tin-shed structures in 1955 with a 300-seat capacity, was the first dormitory of the university for its male students.
The renovation plan of the hall was undertaken with a budget of Tk 1.5 crore.
-With New Age input
