The department is unable to arrange facilities for practice of indoor games for lack of a gymnasium.

Having glory of winning several competitions, the players of the university are to face serious problem in practising indoor games due to absence of a gymnasium mainly in the rainy season.

The participants on many occasions fail to win events as they are to participate in competitions with other universities without proper practice, said the players.

There are more than 500 students having knack for indoor and outdoor games like football, hockey, cricket, handball, volleyball, athletics, badminton and table tennis at the university.

The participants now practise either at the CU central ground or at the Physical Education Department room, sources said.

The university authorities are indifferent to the problems as they have failed to set up proposed sports complex after 31 years of sanctioning budget for it.

The government approved a project worth Tk 1.25 crore to set up a sports complex in the university in 1976 along with two other projects for Dhaka and Rajshahi universities.

Rajshahi University authorities set up a full-fledged stadium and Dhaka University a sports complex, including a swimming pool under the projects while the CU authorities did nothing.

It is learnt that the then vice-chancellor and the engineers of the university responsible for implementing the project were punished at a court marshal during the autocratic regime of HM Ershad for corruption relating to the project.

Besides, the University Grant Commission (UGC) allocated Tk 4.98 crore in 1995 to set up a full-fledged sports complex at the university.

But the authorities did not start the construction, saying the allocation was not sufficient to set up a sports complex, sources said.

On the other hand, participation of the university teams in the next inter-university handball at Gazipur, swimming in Dhaka and football in Rajshahi has become uncertain due to fund constraint as the allocation has already been exhausted.

The university authorities allocated Tk 8 lakh for the department for 2006-2007, which is too meagre to run the department.

Participation in the events at another university is very expensive while a good amount of money is to spend for holding annual sports of the university, sources said.

Meanwhile, the Physical Education Department, the lone place for practice of indoor games, also doesn't have any building of its own for practice.

The building of the department is actually meant to house only the printing press of the university.

AMM Raquib Quoraishi, director of the department, said, "It needs Tk 14 to 15 lakh to participate in all events where we get only Tk 8 lakh."

A gymnasium is necessary to improve quality of the players and arrange indoor games, he said.

"We have sent a reviewed proposal to the ministry concerned last month that will be implemented in three phases at a cost of Tk 8 crore", he added.