BENGALURU: The University Grants Commission (UGC) redirected all Higher Educational Institutes (HEIs) to constitute anti-ragging committees in their colleges and universities if they have failed to do so far. In case of extreme ragging and suicide cases the principal of the college and registrar of the university will be called and will be answerable to the National Anti-Ragging Monitoring Committee for non-compliance of UGC regulations on the issues, reiterated the letter dated April 18.
Taking cognisance of the increasing stress levels among students and many taking extreme steps, the commission also issued another notification to form a district-level anti-ragging committee. The letter is addressed to the chief secretary of all states.
“District Collector/ Deputy Commissioner/ District Magistrate must be the head of the committee. The heads of the university or college, the superintendent of police or the SSP of the district must be members. The additional district magistrate will be the member secretary. The committee must have representatives of the local media, district-level NGO, student organisations, local police, local administration and the institutional authorities to ensure vigil on incidents that may come within the definition of ragging,” stated the letter.
The district-level committee must also hold preparatory meetings during the summer vacation to take stock of the preparedness of each institution and their compliance with the anti-ragging regulations and plan for awareness campaigns for the new academic year in English, Hindi and local languages.
UGC noted that examinations such as NEET, JEE and other competitive tests cause increased stress among students. There is no stress management mechanism available to cope with this. “A team of good counsellors with expertise in yoga, meditation and psychology who can read stressful minds to tackle such problematic cases need to be available. Therefore, a full-time counsellor, Yoga, or Meditation instructor may be appointed,” read the directive.
According to a recently released report, the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) revealed that Bengaluru Urban district has the highest density of colleges in the country (1,106) and the state has a total of 4,430 colleges, securing the third position after Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, implementing anti-ragging regulations is utmost necessary. However many college and university websites lacked phone numbers of nodal officers with limited information on anti-ragging. On some the helpline number too was incomplete.
Students in distress due to ragging can call the National anti-ragging helpline number 1800-180-5522.
