Bhubaneswar, July 14: With the shocking self-immolation incident in FM College Balasore, the Higher Education Department, Odisha focused on the efficiency of the Internal Complaint Committees (ICs) of the higher educational institutions.
With instructions to college principals and authorities the deparment on Monday sought status report regarding the ICs and asked them to upload details of the members and proceedings with address of communication on the HIMS Portal latest by tomorrow.
In order to contain sexual harassment in academia, the Odisha Higher Education Department today issued a circular mandating every state public and private university, with government‑aided and unaided degree colleges, to finalize and publicize their Internal Committees (ICs) within the 24 hours.
The circular read, with reference to the earlier communications dating back to September 2024 and May 2025, it is warned that no further delay will be tolerated in forming essential CSs under Section 4 of the UGC’s 2015 regulations on prevention and redressal of sexual harassments in higher educational institutions. Each campus must now appoint and furnish appropriate representation including women members and an external expert in its IC.
Beyond mere constitution, colleges and universities must display the names and contact numbers of all IC members prominently on campus noticeboards and upload the same information on the HIMS portal, the correspondence said.
Within the next week, every institution is also expected to conduct sensitisation workshops on the Act for both students and faculty.
Worth mentioning, to verify compliance details, the department has insisted on a geo‑tagged photograph showing the IC display to be uploaded to a dedicated Google Drive link by tomorrow, the directives further read.
