THE state of residential halls at Dhaka University has reached an alarming level of decay, laying bare years of institutional neglect and bureaucratic inertia. Across several halls, such as Salimullah Hall, the Mohsin Hall, the Shahidullah Hall and the Surya Sen Hall, students live under crumbling ceilings, cracked walls and exposed iron rods. The recent incident on October 19, when a large chunk of plaster flaked off the ceiling in a room at the Salimullah Hall, barely missing a student, has only underscored the perilous condition of the century-old structures. Students have staged protests demanding lasting repairs, yet the administration鈥檚 response remains limited to patchwork fixes and vague assurances. Administrators have admitted the crisis but continue to move in slow bureaucratic phases, citing a government allocation of Tk 2,840 crore that has yet to be released. The tender process for a full renovation, as officials say, may take 10 more months to begin. Meanwhile, some halls are so ramshackle that even canteen ceilings pose a threat and at least one abandoned hall has been illegally occupied by outsiders. The situation has reached a point where students live each night in fear of collapse, echoing the tragic memory of the 1985 Jagannath Hall disaster, an ever-present reminder of what institutional apathy can cost.
What has been unfolding within the halls for as long as one can remember is more than a crisis of infrastructure, it is a deep-rooted crisis of conscience, sustained by years of neglect and institutional complacency. The decaying halls have turned spaces of learning into zones of risk, where students study, sleep and eat beneath ceilings that could collapse at any moment. This environment not only endangers physical safety but corrodes mental well-being and academic focus. The right to education is inseparable from the right to safety, yet both are being violated through institutional neglect and chronic mismanagement. The administration, long entangled in bureaucratic complacency, continues to delay essential renovations under the pretext of funding procedures and tender formalities. Successive authorities have normalised the practice of temporary fixes while the treasurer鈥檚 office and planning departments trade responsibility instead of ensuring accountability. This inertia reflects a deeper malaise, the politicisation of university governance, where student welfare is routinely sacrificed to administrative hierarchy. What is required now is a comprehensive renovation plan with immediate emergency repairs, independent structural audits and transparent use of funds under public scrutiny. The government should release the promised allocation without delay while university leadership should treat safety as a non-negotiable priority. Anything less would be complicity in yet another preventable disaster.
The authorities can no longer afford another cycle of promises and postponements. Immediate, transparent action is imperative to safeguard students鈥� lives and restore dignity to the nation鈥檚 premier university. Every day lost to bureaucracy deepens the risk and if lessons from past incidents remain unheeded, the next disaster will not be an accident but a failure foretold.