Govt launches anti-ragging portal

New Delhi, Jul 26: The government launched an anti-ragging website helping students of universities, colleges and professional institutes lodge online complaints against ragging or harassment and seek faster response.

One can also get the anti-ragging affidavits through email registering on the website and keep a track about the progress of their complaints logging on www.antiragging.in, launched by HRD Minister Kapil Sibal. The UGC-managed portal has been developed in active collaboration with Rajendra Kachroo, father of Aman who lost his life to ragging at a medical college in Himachal Pradesh in 2009.

Students can also register their complaint dialing 18001805522 as part of the facility, which will be followed up in a structured software system. "The complaints would be examined. If they are of serious magnitude, they would be transferred immediately to the police, the magistrate and head of the institution," said UGC acting chairman Ved Prakash.

Sibal said there would be monitoring mechanism at every level acting on the complaints. "We will also have all information and if we find something is not being done properly, then we can take immediate steps," he told reporters.

As part of the holistic measure, a database of all institutes would be created in the portal out of the affidavits affirmed by the students or parents. "Such database shall also function as record of complaints received and action taken," said a HRD Ministry statement. The portal is a follow up to a Supreme Court judgement of May 2009 ordering implementation of ragging prevention programme as it expressed grave concern on increasing incidences of ragging in educational institutions.

"The web portal is a medium of managing complaints, follow up of complaints and escalation of unresolved complaints to regulatory authorities, enhanced communication with colleges and universities, developing database, displaying status of complaints etc," said the HRD Ministry statement.

"All our communication, talks and discussions would be posted on the web so that the victim has complete access to what has happened since lodging the compliant," Kachroo said, whose trust - Aman Satya Kachroo Trust - will manage the 24X7 facility.

PTI