UGC has issued a directive that all HEIs should establish a well-designed induction program for students upon admission, which will be known as Diksharambh. With this project, the primary goal is to make it easier for students to settle in the college life, to provide them with the key values of this institution and to build connections between them and teachers. Manish Ratnakar Joshi, UGC secretary, brings forward the need to put in place a strong support system for junior students as they make the giant leap from secondary to higher education.
Encountering of freshmen, seniors, and teachers together creates a common feeling of fellowship, which effectively suppresses ragging, especially for students who migrated from the remote or rural areas. "Mentoring of this group calls for extensive mentoring," says Joshi.
Whereas most programs in the past have been just one-day orientation programs, Deeksharambh, which was launched in 2019, goes beyond that, necessitating a relatively long time and effort from the volunteers. Joshi advocates for universal use of the program by persuading HEIs to file any initiations through images or videos on the UGC’s University Activity Monitoring Portal (UAMP). This shift underpins the UGC's aspiration to enhance student support structures widely in the academic domain.
