India Proposes 1 Counsellor Per 500 Students Nationwide

Millions of college students across India could soon have guaranteed access to mental health support under new draft guidelines that would make counseling a standard part of campus life.

The University Grants Commission has proposed requiring every large institution to maintain one counselor for every 500 students, with smaller colleges providing one counselor per 100 students. The guidelines follow a Supreme Court order from July 2025 directing the creation of a uniform mental health policy for all higher education institutions.

Under the proposal, every college and university would establish a dedicated Mental Health and Well-being Centre with private rooms for counseling sessions. Contact information for these centers would be displayed prominently across campuses and on institutional websites, making help easy to find when students need it most.

The guidelines go beyond just hiring counselors. They call for regular awareness programs on stress and anxiety, training for faculty and peers to recognize warning signs of distress, and comprehensive crisis management systems. Student records would be kept confidential and coded, then destroyed one year after graduation to protect privacy.

A new national portal called MANASSETU will track implementation across the country. The UGC will collect annual reports and feedback to measure whether the policy achieves its core goals of improving student well-being and reducing dropout rates and loss of life.

The committee behind these recommendations was led by Dr. Rajinder K Dhamija, director of the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences in Delhi. His team worked to create standards that could work across India's diverse higher education landscape, from massive universities to small regional colleges.

The Ripple Effect

This policy represents a fundamental shift in how India's education system views student mental health. For years, counseling services were optional extras at better-funded institutions, leaving millions of students without access to support during one of life's most stressful periods.

By making mental health centers mandatory with specific staffing requirements, the guidelines acknowledge what students and advocates have been saying for years: mental health support isn't a luxury. The standardized approach means a student at a small rural college will have similar access to care as someone at a prestigious urban university.

The UGC plans to collaborate with organizations including the World Health Organization and India's National Research Foundation to develop evidence-based interventions and continuously improve the system. Annual policy reviews will help identify challenges and ensure the guidelines translate into real support on the ground, not just paperwork.

When fully implemented, this could make India one of the first countries to guarantee mental health support as a standard feature of higher education for every student.