The Ministry Human Resource Development (MHRD) has refused to provide any support to University Grants Commission(UGC) for anti-ragging helpline to prevent ragging in educational institutions. The UGC, at a meeting on June 2, 2012 had decided it should monitor an anti-ragging helpline for which a web portal that is yet to be set up.
In a proposal to the Ministry by UGC includes that it should not be given the primary responsibility of day-to-day work relating to the helpline and the portal because they do not come under the core functions of the UGC mandate. But the ministry has rejected the request. A ministry official said that according to a Supreme Court its the duty of UGC to take the prime responsibility for implementing the anti-ragging measures. Following the order, UGC set up a call centre, which was being managed by EdCIL, a public sector consultancy firm, and Caretel, a private company. Any student who is ragged can dial the helpline, which is to pass the message on to police and the institute’s authorities. The UGC was to review the status of the complaints to ensure they were being addressed.
Accordig to EdCIL official, UGC had not revised the payment structure for running the helpline due to which it is now running the helpline itself. Meanwhile, UGC recently decided to assign the job of managing the helpline, portal and the databases to a trust launched by Rajendra Kachroo, whose son Aman died after being ragged in a medical college in Himachal Pradesh in 2009. This trust is working for a stronger anti-ragging mechanism at the government as well as at the institutions level.
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