New Delhi: The R K Raghavan committee, set up by the government to check the menace of ragging, has some encouraging words for the students. The committee, which held a meeting in the capital on Thursday with representatives from Medical Council of India and the All India Council of Technical Education, hoped that 'we will have a year free of ragging'.
The meeting was aimed at discussing the setting up of the centralised call centre to help victims of ragging starting this academic session.
Raghavan expressed his concern about the recent ragging incidents reported in the media, the latest one from Hyderabad, which led to the death of another student.
"All of us are concerned about these incidents and there are a few institutions which are still not clued into this and we rue their indifference. But regulatory bodies are watching and in one of the instances, sanctions has also been withdrawn by regulatory body," Raghavan said.
But despite these re-assurances the students, especially in medical and engineering colleges aren't resting easy.
The outstation students from IIT Delhi say they see regular ragging incidents in the hostel, which they refer to as 'interactive sessions' between freshers and seniors.
But despite the friendly nature of these sessions, they do admit that sometimes it turns ugly and that signed undertakings or call centres would not go too far in curbing the menace.
"No undertaking can actually stop ragging, it can at maximum reinstill a fear of getting caught," said Pavan, an IIT Delhi student.
"I don't think these call centres work. Once I had called up a helpline number at night, no one picked up," said another student Pranab.
The main problem lies in the fact that medical and engineering colleges, especially the ones that lie outside metro cities do not follow these regulations yet. And despite repeated meetings by regulatory authorities, the student communities are not reassured.