UGC asks varsities to implement recommendations on women's

Seeking to strengthen women's safety on campuses, UGC has asked universities and institutes across the country to implement the recommendations of a task force which had suggested augmentation of infrastructure and formulating guidelines to deal with sexual harassment cases.
In its letter, UGC has the universities to identify a senior faculty and assign him or her the responsibility of implementation of the report and "exhorting" other institutes to follow suit.
The task force christened 'Saksham' had said that all higher educational institutions must formulate guidelines for dealing with sexual harassment in their respective institutions and setting up of anti-sexual harassment committees in all the institutions.

Set up in the wake of the Delhi gangrape incident of December 2012, it had also recommended setting up of a gender sensitisation unit within the UGC.
It also recommended providing counselling services on a full-time basis and having adequate infrastructure such as lighting in campuses, reliable public transport toilet facilities and provision of girl's hostel facility in higher education institutions.
The task force, chaired by member UGC Meenakshi Gopinath, has come up with several fundamental and far reaching recommendations which are based on the principles of equality and justice guaranteed by the Constitution, a UGC statement issued earlier said.

These are also based on Rights to Dignity, Bodily Autonomy and Integrity enunciated in the bill of Rights to Women in the Justice Verma Committee report of January 2013 and are in consonance with the Vishaka guidelines, the Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act 2013 and Criminal Amendment Bill 2013, the statement added.
The recommendations were based on findings which revealed that gender sensitisation emerged as the weakest aspect in the process of addressing issues on campuses.