Nearly a year after the death of a first-year student following incidents of ragging at the university hostel, Jadavpur University has set up an anti-ragging monitoring cell in compliance with a 2009 regulation by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and has established two new on-campus hostels exclusively for first-year undergraduate students.
According to the interim vice chancellor Bhaskar Gupta, the anti-ragging monitoring cell constitutes five members who will be active in their mission in both the Jadavpur campus as well as the University’s Salt Lake campus.
In a 2009 regulation on curbing the menace of ragging in higher educational institutions, the UGC had mentioned that “if the institute is an affiliating university, it shall have a Monitoring Cell on Ragging to coordinate with the institutions affiliated to it by calling for reports from the heads of such institutions regarding the activities of the anti-ragging committees, squads and mentoring cells”.
Mr. Gupta also told local mediapersons that one of the two new hostels set up in the university’s main campus is ready with over 70 beds and that fresher students have already started moving in. The other hostel, which will be ready for move-in shortly, will have over 50 beds for new students.
Consequently, second-year and third-year students seeking hostel accommodation would be transferred to the men’s hostel, located outside the University’s main campus.
Additionally, efforts are underway to assign the role of hostel warden to professors of the University who reside on campus. Since 2006, non-teaching staff were being appointed superintendents of the hostels at Jadavpur University.
Computer science engineering professor Diganta Saha has been made the warden of the on-campus for the first-year freshers. Sridip Chatterjee, an associate professor in the Department of Physical Education, has been appointed officer-in-charge who would respond to any emergency in the university in the evening or at night.
A professor is also set to be assigned the warden of the hostel for second-year students.
“We hope that these measures can help students and parents overcome the fear surrounding hostel accommodation, and can help free the campus from the menace of ragging,” Mr. Gupta said.
In August last year, a minor first-year student died after falling from a balcony of Jadavpur University’s men’s hostel, allegedly after hours of ragging and sexual abuse by senior students and ex-students. Around 13 people were arrested in connection with the case.
