UGC tells every college to start online complaint board where students can register issues with reservation, capitation

Each and every higher education institutions in the country will soon be asked to set up a separate online portal for receiving grievances from its students. It is one of the important criteria in the University Grants Commission's draft regulation on Grievance Redressal of Students, which will supercede 2012 regulation.

Once the new regulation, on which the commission has now sought feedback from stakeholders, is published in the Gazette of India, the higher education institutions will have to set up online grievance redressal portal within a span of three months time.

Starting from irregularity in admission process, non publication of prospectus or furnishing false, misleading information in prospectus, withholding certificates and documents of students, demanding money in excess of what is prescribed in the prospectus, non payment or delayed payment of scholarship, breach of reservation policy, delay in conducting examination or publishing result, unfair evaluation practices, students can lodge their complaints in the portal. The regulation also envisages forming of four committees to redress the student's grievance, department, institutional, college and university levels.

The department grievance redressal committee will be headed by the head of the department, institutional grievance redressal committee will have Pro-VC or dean or senior academician as chairperson, college grievance redressal committee will have the principal of the college as chairman and university grievance redressal committee will have a senior professor of the university as chairman.

The regulation mandates higher education institutions to publish and upload on its website, the prospectus, at least 60 days before commencement of admission process. The prospectus should contain information including a list of programmes offered, the number of seats approved by the statutory authority, conditions of educational qualification and eligibility, the process of selection of eligible candidates, each component of the fee, details of teaching faculty with their educational qualification, physical and academic infrastructure.

The prospectus should also contain rules and regulation for imposition and collection of any fines specified heads or categories, minimum and maximum fine may be imposed, the draft regulation says. Students aggrieved by the decision of the grievance redressal committees will also have the option of approaching ombudsperson, who be retired VC or Registrar or faculty member having ten years of experience as a professor, and will not be related to that particular university.

Ombudsperson will be appointed by the executive council of the university on a part-time basis from a panel of three names recommended by the search committee consisting nominee of the Governor, VC of a state university nominated by State government, VC of the concerned university. In case non compliance of the regulation UGC withdraw 12B status, withhold any grant allotted to the institutions, declare the institution ineligible for consideration for any assistance, inform general public declaring that the institution does not possess the minimum standards for redressal of grievance, recommend for withdrawal of affiliation Students Federation of India Tamil Nadu State president AT Kannan said, the UGC should activate the existing grievance redressal cell and ensure that it functions effectively.

Opposing idea of asking institutions to declare fine amount in the prospectus, he said, this is aimed at helping private institutions. "We are against the imposition of any fine on students. It is the duty of the teacher to correct and guide the students, even if he or she commits mistakes, he added. He also demanded that for the conduct of student union elections as per the Supreme Court order. Students should have a representation in the senate and syndicate of the university so that they can represent their grievances directly," he suggested.