[ToI] 'Anti-ragging panel could be set up in every college'

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PATNA: The concerns over ragging in Bihar are very much the same as in other states. It is an evil that needs to be controlled, said R K Raghavan, head of the panel constituted to look into the issue of ragging in educational institutions.

The Raghavan committee, formed on the order of Supreme Court, was here on Wednesday to "gather views". "An anti-ragging committee could be set up in every college with students also being represented it," said Raghavan, a former CBI director.

A public hearing was organised by the committee at the L N Mishra Institute of Economic Development and Social Change here. Later, Raghavan told newsmen the committee at this point does not have any solutions to offer.

"We are visiting different states to gather public opinion. We are getting many suggestions which we will then incorporate into a report that will be submitted to the Supreme Court in the first week of April this year," he said.

He said everybody recognises the problem and feels something needs to be done.

Speaking about some of the suggestions the committee received from students unions on Wednesday; Raghavan said one such suggestion is initiation of interaction between freshers and seniors at the earliest so that they get to know each other better.

He said several experiments had been done by some education institutions to put an end to the menace of ragging.

Delhi University's Ramjas College principal Dr Rajendra Prasad, also a committee member, said his college, too, had toyed with new measures to curb ragging. Ramjas College shot into news in the early nineties when a fresher girl was ragged and forced to strip by her seniors.

Prasad said, "At the beginning of the new session two of our teachers become resident wardens and stay inside the college round-the-clock. They interact with students all the time. Besides, we have set up a girls' hostel within the premises. Earlier, the hostel was only for boys. This has brought down ragging drastically."

Other members of the committee are IIT, Kanpur, director Professor Sanjay Govind Dhande, dean of Maulana Azad Medical College Dr A K Agarwal, vice chancellor of SNDT Women's University (Mumbai) Dr Chandra Krishnamurthy, former vice-chancellor of Madras University Professor S Sathikh. Human Resource Development ministry joint secretary Sunil Kumar is member-secretary.