Overview
- Every higher-education institution would be required to set up a mental health and well-being centre and a monitoring committee under the draft.
- Institutions would operate 24×7 helplines linked to national services and run regular awareness and life-skills programmes for students, faculty and families.
- The draft prescribes crisis-readiness measures, including suicide-prevention protocols, gatekeeper training for peers and staff, and structured post-crisis reintegration.
- Proposed staffing standards include at least one qualified mental-health professional for smaller institutes with 100 or more students and a 1:500 counsellor-to-student ratio for larger campuses.
- UGC proposes compliance tracking through the MANASSETU portal with annual reporting and capacity-building support in collaboration with bodies such as NRF, ICMR, ICSSR and WHO.