HYDERABAD: With the ragging menace raising its ugly head in its most heinous form in Srikakulam district even before the academic year in professional colleges has begun, parents and students are clearly outraged.

Two dreadful incidents of ragging reported in a gap of 10 days in the State has had parents and students on the threshold of entering professional colleges at their wits end. While the incident at Kurnool Government Medical College showcased the unabated continuation of ragging, the recent incident at GMR Engineering College, Rajam, in Srikakulam district, only exposed the slumber in which the officialdom was.

No action

Barring a routine note on Anti Ragging Act of 1997 sent to the colleges, that the officials have not taken any serious or concrete action to check ragging in the professional colleges of the State is all too evident. Convictions too have been few. Further, many of the cases are not reported or get hushed up with the connivance of college managements and the higher-ups of the Higher Education Department.

"The lack of stringent punishment for the accused persons in the cases that have been reported so far appears to have emboldened the seniors," admits a senior faculty of a reputed engineering college of the city.

Five students of Gandhi Medical College were arrested in 2001 for ragging their juniors and four were arrested in the College of Technology, Osmania University, in the same year and cases booked. Officials swung into action only after a media blitzkrieg and after that it was back to square one again.

Follow-up lacking

The Directorate of Medical Education made a unique effort with provisions to lodge complaints online on http://dme.ap.nic.in by students and accessible to officials to take necessary action. M.V. Ramana, Chief Information Officer of DME, offered the software free of cost to all the professional colleges, but there were no takers.

An official in Higher Education Department says there is no follow-up mechanism. Neither the colleges send the action taken reports nor the officials ask for it. However, the State Council of Higher Education (APSCHE) Chairman K.C. Reddy says there has been regular monitoring on the issue with college managements.

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