IANS

Bangalore, May 20: Faculty of engineering colleges in Bangalore may reportedly  be deployed as decoy drivers to check the menace of ragging in college buses in the city.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court directed educational institutions across the country to take a slew of stringent anti-ragging measures, including lodging criminal cases against erring students at the police stations.

K Balaveera Reddy, Vice-Chancellor of Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) that administers some 120 engineering colleges in Karnataka, said on Friday that there was no plan to tell the faculty to act as drivers.

However, as part of the strict measures adopted by the VTU to check ragging, junior faculty members would randomly travel in the college buses to deter older students from harassing younger ones, he said.

The vice-chancellor said there are about 60 engineering colleges in Bangalore and since authorities cannot rule out the possibility of ragging in college buses, it was decided to deploy faculty members on the buses.

Asked whether he expects the faculty members to cooperate with him in undertaking this task, Reddy said such exercises were carried out in the past as well which will now be extended.

Reddy said decisions like stamping the mark sheet of a student caught while ragging have been taken in the last few years to check ragging, which have proved to be a good deterrent.

"Which student would like to risk his future by getting such a stamp on his marks card," Reddy said, adding that no student has suffered such punishment so far.

Meanwhile, other universities and their affiliated colleges in the state are also planning new initiatives to ensure strict adherence to the apex court's directive.

Bangalore University, for example, plans moral lessons to make its students desist not only from ragging but also from consuming tobacco and liquor.