121 institutes in Noida yet to form anti-ragging panel

Noida: The student's suicide in Etawah has once again brought to fore the issue of ragging at institutes and colleges. In Gautam Budh Nagar, as many as 121 colleges are yet to apprise the district administration on the constitution of anti-ragging committees in their institutions despite a directive issued a month ago.

According to the district administration, there are 151 colleges and universities in the district which were directed to inform the administration about constitution of these committees.

In a meeting held by the DM on September 6, which was attended by representatives of the institutions, the DM had asked them to constitute the committee as soon as possible and send a list of all the members of that committee to the office of the district inspector of schools (DIOS).

"Only about 30 institutions have sent the details about the committees formed by them. We had also asked them to install CCTV cameras at the premises and display a helpline number at most-visited locations so that students can share their grievances in case they face ragging by seniors," a senior officer of the DIOS office said.

DIOS PK Upadhyay however said that many institutions have multiple affiliations given that they are running separate branches of various disciplines.

"If one institution is running separate branches of law, engineering, science, etc, it gets multiple affiliations. Hence, these institutions are increasing the number of colleges over all," he said even as he agreed that the institutions are not obeying the directions of the DIOS office.

Meanwhile, the DM told TOI that he will ask the DIOS office to send reminders to these institutions.

Talking about the latest incident in which the parents of Mahendra Pratap, a BTech (computer science) student of the Galgotias university have alleged that the boy was ragged by seniors, he said that he will look into the issue in case a complaint is received.