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AKTU to appoint ombudsman to redress students’ grievances
The move to appoint an ombudsman for the state technological came in wake of the All India Council of Technical Education’s (AICTE) directive and requests from students.
Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University (AKTU) will soon appoint an ombudsman for redressal of students’ grievances. A decision to this effect was taken at an executive council meeting of the university held here on Tuesday, said vice chancellor (VC) Prof Vinay Kumar Pathak.
The move to appoint an ombudsman for the state technological came in wake of the All India Council of Technical Education’s (AICTE) directive and requests from students.
“The ombudsman may be a retired district judge or retired vice chancellor or professor, who is the dean of the department and worked as a professor of state/central university or prestigious institutions for at least 10 years,” Pathak said.
The appointment will help students of AKTU’s affiliated engineering and management colleges across the state, to redress their complaints regarding irregularities in admission, excess fees, malpractices in the evaluation and other such issues,” said the VC.
During the meeting, it was also decided to set up a students grievance redressal cell (SGRC) in the varsity.
As per a new set of proposed rules about grievance redressal introduced by the AICTE, all technical institutes — engineering, management, pharmacy, architecture, computer applications and hotel management — requires to set up a student grievance redressal committee to resolve students’ complaints. “If the complainant is not satisfied with the committee’s decision, the students will be able to appeal to the ombudsman to be appointed by the university. The grievances can also be filed online,” an official said.
Earlier, there was no provision for portal-based grievance redressal, but students will now be able to resolve their complaints at the institute level. “There will be no scope for any discrepancies as records of complaints will be made publicly available on the portal,” the official said.
According to the AICTE draft, institutes needs to publish an online prospectus about its courses, intake, fees and eligibility criteria 60 days before the admission process ends, failing which they will risk losing their approval and face other action by the regulator.
