Patna: The Patna University Students' Union (Pusu) has launched a helpline number for students seeking admission at colleges. The helpline number, 9507352218, will help the students in cases of ragging and eve-teasing.

Divyanshu Bhardwaj, the Patna University Students' Union, president said: "A student from Pusu has been assigned the task to help the students on different problems faced by freshers seeking admission at colleges."

He added: "Ragging is banned by the University Grants Commission. There are occasions that students face ragging in colleges but fail to complain to higher authorities due to unawareness. Through this helpline number, we will help such students and at the same time create awareness."

The helpline number will be functional from 11am to 4pm. Apart from helping students on ragging and eve-teasing cases, the students will also be assisted on admission procedures at different colleges. Students will be informed about cut-off marks for different colleges and also the dates when they can take admission at colleges. The Pusu has informed Raj Bhavan, the Patna University vice-chancellor's office and principals of different colleges about the helpline number.

The students, naturally, have welcomed the decision of starting the helpline number for students. Kumar Sanjay, a student of Patna College, said: "The decision to start the helpline number is in the larger interest of the students. We have observed that students have little or no information about cut-off marks for different colleges." The student claimed that students coming from rural backgrounds often face this problem.

Different colleges, based on entrance tests conducted by PU earlier this month, are issuing cut-off marks for admission at different colleges. On Saturday, BN College issued the cut-off for admission to BA, BSc (mathematics and biology). In BA, the cut-off marks for general candidates is 75-57 marks and date for admission is July 3. Similarly, in BSc (mathematics) the general category cut-off mark is 78-50 while the admission date is July 4.

Bus service

After a wait for 38 long years, the ring bus service for students of Patna University was started last month on the initiative of Pusu leaders.

The buses will start from Gandhi Maidan and pass through Patna Medical College and Hospital, Science College, Patna College and National Institute of Technology-Patna.

The service will run from 7am to 10pm. One has to pay Rs 5 for boarding the bus. The students' union has also decided to take up the issue with higher authorities for starting a mess service for students from the next academic session.