Anantrao Pawar College

The Student's Grievance Redressal Cell desires to promote and maintain a conducive and unprejudiced educational environment.

The cell provides a mechanism for redressal of grievances of students and all other stakeholders. It ensures transparency in admission and prevents unfair means. The Grievance Redressal Cell of the college desires to promote and maintain a helpful, encouraging and unprejudiced educational environment. The Cell enables a stakeholder to express his/her feelings freely and frankly by initiating and pursuing the grievance procedure in accordance with the rules and regulations of the UGC. The Grievances of stakeholders are enquired, analysed and solved in a strictly confidential and fair manner.

In order to maintain a harmonious educational environment in the college, the cell helps to develop a responsive and responsible attitude among the students and all stakeholders.

Objectives of the Cell

• To ensure a stress free atmosphere and to maintain cordial relationships among students and teachers and all other stakeholders.
• To encourage students to express their problems freely and frankly.
• To investigate the cause of grievances and to ensure the removal of them in future.
• To create awareness of availability of mechanism to register their grievances.
• To define and develop S.O.P. for grievances.

Composition of the Cell

• The Principal is the Chairman of the cell. The College Examination Officer is the Coordinator of the cell, with senior teaching staff as members and one representative of non-teaching staff.
• The cell will follow the procedure of natural justice to the aggrieved.
• The Grievance Redressal Cell shall report the recommendations, if any, to the Principal.

Students' Grievance Procedure

The students and all stakeholders are advised to approach the concerned department in person to lodge their complaint. If he/she is unwilling to do so, they are advised to put up a grievance in writing and drop it in the suggestion/complaint box.

How the grievance is solved:

• The complaint box is checked twice a month by committee members.
• The cases are attended promptly on receipt of grievances from the students and all stakeholders.
• The cell formally reviews all cases and prepares a statistical report about the number of cases received.
• The cell gives a report to the authority about the cases attended to and the number of pending cases, if any, which require direction and guidance from the higher authorities.
• The Grievance Redressal Cell acts upon those cases which have been forwarded along with the necessary documents.
• The Grievance Redressal Cell assures that the grievance has been properly solved in a stipulated time limit provided by the committee.
• Action is taken at the earliest depending on the nature of complaint.

UGC Guidelines, Norms and Definitions

• Act means the University Grants Commission Act, 1956 (3 of 1956).
• Aggrieved student means a student who has any complaint in the matters concerned with the grievances defined under these regulations, and includes a person seeking admission to any institution of higher education.
• College means an institution which provides for a course of study for obtaining any qualification from a university and is recognised as competent to provide such course of study.
• Commission means the University Grants Commission established under section 4 of the UGC Act, 1956.
• Grievance Redressal Committee means a committee constituted under these regulations.
• Higher Educational Institution means a University within the meaning of clause (f) of Section 2, a college within the meaning of clause (b) of subsection (1) of Section 12A, and an institution deemed to be a University declared under Section 3 of the UGC Act, 1956.

Grievances include the following complaints

• Demand of excess money other than that specified in the declared admission policy or approved by the competent authority.
• Complaints of students from the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, Minority or Disabled categories.
• Non-publication of prospectus/brochure as specified.
• Denial of quality education as promised at the time of admission or required to be provided.
• Publishing any information in the prospectus which is false or misleading and not based on facts.
• Delay in conduct of examinations or declaration of results beyond that specified in the academic calendar.
• Non-provision of student amenities as may have been promised or required to be provided by the institution.
• Non-transparent or unfair evaluation practices.
• Non-payment or delay in payment of scholarships to eligible students that the institution is committed to under conditions imposed by UGC or any other authority.
• Non-transparent or unfair evaluation process.
• Refund of fees, in case a student withdraws admission within the stipulated time as mentioned in the prospectus, as notified by the Commission from time to time.

Grievances otherwise received were forwarded to the Vice-Principals for immediate redressal. In all such cases prompt action was taken and the matter sorted out. In all cases the aggrieved was informed of the measures taken and checks in the system were introduced to ensure there was no repetition of the same.