Chittagong University announces Tk 339cr budget

The authorities of Chittagong University (CU) yesterday placed a Tk 339.18 crore budget for the 2019-20 fiscal year with only 1.24 percent allocation for research work. 

CU Acting Registrar KM Nur Ahmed placed the budget for final approval at the 31st annual senate meeting held at the vice chancellor’s (VC) conference room. The university’s acting VC Prof Shireen Akhter chaired the meeting.

University Grants Commission (UGC) approved the Tk 339.18 crore budget, where Tk 212.70 crore will be spent for salaries and allowances of teachers and staff. The allocation for research is Tk 4.2 crore. There is no deficit.

Meanwhile, Tk 16.50 crore is expected as internal income. The revised budget of Tk 329.50 crore for the fiscal year 2018-2019 was also approved at the meeting. 

While addressing the meeting, several parliament members expressed their dissatisfaction for not allocating adequate budget in the research sector. 

Underscoring the need for research, Comilla-3 constituency’s lawmaker Yussuf Abdullah Harun said it is very unfortunate that only 1.24 percent budget was allocated for this sector, which is not enough.

Waseqa Ayesha Khan, MP of reserved seat for women-7 asked the authorities to organise CU Central Students Union (Cucsu) election as early as possible to ensure students representatives in the senate.

Mosharraf Hossain, parliament member of Chattogram-1; Mahfuzur Rahman, MP of Chattogram-3, and Md Nazrul Islam Chowdhury, MP of Chattogram-14 also stressed the need for adequate budget in the research sector.