Soon, students of engineering colleges, management education institutions and other technical campuses in the country can address their grievances to an ombudsman in addition to local grievance redressal cells. The All India Council for Technical Education (Establishment of Mechanism for Grievance Redressal) Regulations, 2012 notified recently has paved the way for preventing unfair practices in these institutions.
The regulations mandate every technical university (in Tamil Nadu Anna University) to appoint an ombudsman for redressal of grievances. “The ombudsman shall be a person who has been a judge, not below the rank of a District Judge or a retired professor, who has at least 10 years experience. He/she would be appointed by a search committee headed by a Governor’s nominee and comprising two vice-chancellors of public universities, one vice-chancellor of a private university and secretary for Higher Technical Education,” a senior AICTE official said.
Similarly, in all technical institutions, the VC of the affiliating university must constitute a five-member grievance committee. “These committees and the ombudsman shall have the powers to probe into any complaints relating to irregularities in admissions, failure to return academic certificates, demanding excess fees/money, or violating the reservation norms. Even sexual harassment cases would come under their purview,” the official added. The AICTE official said every technical institution must maintain a registry in which a student can record their complaints. As soon as a complaint is received the ombudsman must seek an explanation from the institution concerned within seven days and dispose of the case within a month.
“Managements of colleges must cooperate with the ombudsman failing which it would attract scrutiny from the AICTE,” he added.