Editor,
After reading yesterday’s paper which boasted the following caption “State urges centre to reconsider ‘retirement age’ condition”, I and I am sure all College teachers in the State were left wondering as to what Mr RC Laloo meant when he approached Mr Kapil Sibal and asked him to delink the “two” issues: (a) The release of the 80% arrears still due to the teachers (b) The increase in the retirement age of teachers to 65 years. I thought the UGC has stated very explicitly that without enhancing the retirement age of the teachers, the 80% arrears will not be released. Now how can the honourable Minister of Human Resources Development plead on our behalf and why should the UGC consider our demands? The arguments put forth by our Education Minister makes no sense, and if this is his ploy to buy time, our patience is surely running out
Yours etc.,
Ibanri Kharkongor,
Via email
Have a heart MeECL
Editor,
For the last few months the MeECL have put entire state of Meghalaya on complete black out on the pretext of load shedding. Load shedding starts around late night, from 1 am to about 5 am in the morning and during this time the entire state is submerged in total darkness. In addition to this, the electricity goes off, umpteen numbers of times in a day. The point here is that, the timings of the load shedding and the routine and perfunctory manner in which, it is being carried out by MeECL, has put the lives of the general public at stake, because it has allowed and encouraged anti social elements to commit crimes with impunity, in the city areas, leave alone the rural areas. If one takes a closer look at things, then one can easily discern that, crime rates have perceptibly increased, in the state, as a whole, and a large majority of these crimes are being committed, during the load shedding hours. Nowhere in the country is an entire state or union territory for that matter put on complete blackout, as is being done here. Even in metropolitan cities like, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, etc, where there is acute shortage of electricity, load shedding is carried out in a phased and planned manner. Come to think of it, I don’t think the members of the Board of MeECL, or for that matter, even the Chief Minister, are awake during the night and wee hours of morning to consider important matters of state, at least, not on every night, anyway. So how come they have lights on in their respective residence during load shedding hours, when we the ordinary citizens don’t have that? And by the way, how come huge industrial organizations, corporate body buildings and factories etc, have electricity, when ordinary citizens, don’t have that? Even the street lights are off and the entire state remains in total darkness! In addition to this, there is no sign of any police patrol as a deterrent against anti social elements during the load shedding period.
To top it all, if one takes a closer look at the list of Board of Directors of MeECL, then one sees that it is filled with very senior civil servants. One would have thought that with all their administrative training, expertise and experience, they would have by now understood that the safety of the general public comes first and precedes everything else in the list of administrative priorities. Keeping that in view, they should have applied their minds and foresight in dealing with such public issues. So come on guys, wake up. Even if MeECL needs to resort to load shedding, this is certainly not the way to do it, at least not in such a thoughtless manner, anyway. Load shedding if at all necessary, can be carried out in a phased manner, keeping in view, the safety of the general public and the fact that, there are a lot many elderly people around who are on life support systems. For God sakes, at least have the street lights on and don’t tell me that, you don’t have the mechanism or the expertise to do that.
Yours etc.,
U Sangma,
Via email