SHILLONG: The director of North Eastern Institute of Ayurveda and Homoeopathy (NEIAH) on Thursday downplayed the ongoing students’ protest on the premises of the institute.
Director PK Goswami told media persons that the office of the NEIAH did not get any prior information about the protest.
According to Goswami, there was no proposal for construction of hostels under Phase I of the project. However, the institute has on March 30, 2017, signed an agreement with National Projects Construction Corporation Limited for construction of a guest house, UG hostel for boys and girls, staff quarters and senior residents’ hostel under Phase II of the project with an estimated cost of Rs 56.03 crore.
“Recently, we have opened the technical bid and we are hoping that the work will be awarded soon,” he said.
The statement came from the director as students have not attended any classes in the last few days as they are demanding better transport facilities, accommodation, hostel facilities or subsidy to compensate house rent.
Goswami said during a meeting last May, the students were informed that they had two options — either they can accept the proposal for hostel fee to be collected by the institute at Rs 2,000 per month per student along with refundable caution money of Rs 6,000 or they could find an alternative with the hostel owner directly regarding the monthly rental, over and above the existing mess fee of Rs 3,800 per month.
“Due to dissatisfaction of the first batch of students residing in the private hostel, the NEIAH authority had withdrawn the contract as they could not receive any intimation from students on time,” Goswami said.
At present, 94 girls have been put up in North East Girls Hostel at Mawlai Mawroh, which is a private accommodation, and 33 boys are staying in another hostel owned by the same proprietor.
“The rest of the students are residing in their homes or self-arranged accommodation but the institute has extended transportation facility made available to all the hostellers. This is the reason why there is overcrowding of buses. However, the institute has recently provided an additional bus to meet the growing demand,” said the NEIAH director.
He also informed that as far as laboratory facilities are concerned, the Hospital Services Consultancy Corporation Limited (HSCC (I) ltd, which has been entrusted with the job of consultancy under Phase I of the project, after taking five years, has finally handed over all the buildings on October 3, 2016, without developing proper labortories.
“Thereafter, as per the approval of the 6th meeting of the SFC which was held on November 26, 2016 at Shillong, HSCC (I) Ltd was asked to execute and modify the Labs as per our requirement with an additional cost of Rs 52 lakh which is in progress now and expected to be completed shortly,” Goswami added.
