Neighbours are asking for private universities in the capital city to move out of residential areas, as the law requires.
People living around said that the private universities were causing them problems.
Residents complained to New Age about violence from student demonstrations and the bad traffic caused by the universities.
On Nov 3, at least 40 people were injured in a violent clash between police and the students of Stamford University at Siddheswari.
‘As police shot tear gas, some of the shells hit my house,’ said Rahad Uddin Ahmed, secretary of the committee of an apartment building at Siddeswari adjacent to the campus.
‘Every one living in my apartment panicked and some could not sleep that night,’ he said.
He said that when he and others had decided to build an apartment block there, the place was calm and quiet.
‘If we had known earlier the place would become so crowded, we would not have built the apart-ment block there,’ he said.
Anwar Hossain, a resident of Dhanmondhi, where many private universities are located, told New Age, ‘frequent clashes between student groups’ troubled all in the neighbourhood.
He said, ‘The private universities are also one of the main reasons of traffic jam in Dhanmondhi.’
The Private University Act 2010 prohibits establishment of private universities or their campuses at locations the government declares not appropriate for environmental, security, public interest or other reasons.
It means, said University Grant Commission officials that no private university could be established in areas prohibited by Rajuk or similar authorities.
They said that Rajuk requested the UGC in a letter not to allow establishment of private universities on VIP roads, other busy avenues or in crowded residential areas like Dhanmondhi.
The UGC would not, said its chairman Nazrul Islam, give permission to set up new private universities in these areas.
‘The universities already located in these areas will have to shift their campuses elsewhere,’ he told New Age.
The original Private Universities Act 1992 required that the universities must move into their own campuses in five years, rather than continue to function from rented buildings.
Out of 56 private universities, only three, North South, Independent University of Bangladesh and Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology have moved into their own campuses, said UGC officials.
The East West and some other universities, they said, were in the process of shifting.
The private university owners association told the Education minister, at a meeting earlier this week that it would take 15 years for them to shift to their own campuses.
They also requested the ministry to provide them land for building the campuses.
‘As far as I know, the universities are trying to shift their campuses from residential areas,’ Abdul Mannan Chowdhury, a member of the Association of Private Universities of Bangladesh told New Age.
But, they need time to build the campuses, he said.
‘Government should help the universities get the land they do not have,’ he said.
The UGC chairman, however, called it ‘illogical and unrealistic’ for them to seek 15 years for going to their own campus.
They can request the government to help them to find land but it cannot be a condition for shifting to their own campuses, as the law requires, he said.
‘It is a law now, we have no option but to implement it,’ he said.
‘The law requires that private universities have to go to their own campuses,’ said the education minister Nurul Islam Nahid.
‘We want a solution with which everyone can agree,’ he said.
