University Grants Commission (UGC) has developed the "Guidelines on basic facilities and amenities for safe, secure environment for Women and Women Cell (for sensitization, policy implementation, monitoring and grievance redressal) in Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs)" to provide a safe, secure and violence free environment to all the students particularly the women students. The guidelines are available on the UGC website at www.ugc.gov.in.

All HEIs have been mandated to have Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) under the provision of Section 4 of Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013. Advisories have been issued from time to time for taking action in order to sensitize the issue related to maintenance of safe working environment for female employees as per the Act. In order to improve the safety of all women, including students and employees and to provide a healthy and secure atmosphere for them on the campus in Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs), following initiatives have been taken:-

1. UGC has notified UGC (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal of Sexual Harassment of Women Employees and Students in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2015, which being statutory in nature, are binding on Universities and Colleges. This regulation is available on UGC website i.e. www.ugc.gov.in.

ii. UGC has set up Toll free No. 1800-111-656 for registration of grievances related to women and sexual harassment.

3. Seminars/awareness workshops etc. are conducted for Gender Sensitization in HEIs.
4. UGC has directed all Universities/Colleges to submit the data of annual return on cases of sexual harassment and constitute an Internal Complaint Committee and to fill an online compliance of Gender Audit at SAKSHAM web portal.

The information was given by the Minister of State for Education, Dr. Subhas Sarkar in a written reply in the Lok Sabha today.

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