The 10-day trip of a six-member delegation of Pabna University of Science and Technology (PUST) to Turkey to purchase elevators has been postponed.
At the behest of the country's president Md Shahabuddin, the PUST vice-chancellor postponed the tour which had drawn huge criticism.
The deputy director of the university's public relations and publication office, Faruk Hossain Chowdhury, confirmed the matter to Prothom Alo. He said the VC suspended the tour at the behest of the country’s president, adding their (six officials) leave applications were rejected.
The delegation led by the university’s pro-vice chancellor, SM Mostafa Kamal Khan, was supposed to visit Turkey on 6 June.
The trip on the pretext of buying elevators was heavily censured by the members of the civil society. They said tours for trivial reasons are nothing but luxury and wasting public money.
Square Group chairman and managing director Anjan Chowdhury said elevator companies have representatives in Bangladesh. There is no reason for such a foreign trip. The money could rather be spent on the students’ welfare.
Terming the trip a luxury and waste of public money, ABM Fazlur Rahman, director of Pabna chamber of commerce and industries, said there are some big companies in the country who supply elevators.
However, the university authority claimed the project is four years old. Neither the university nor the government has any involvement in this.