NEC asks Centre to reduce height for North East youths in defence jobs

SHILLONG: The North Eastern Council (NEC) has appealed to the Centre to review the minimum height criterion in the army and the paramilitary for candidates from the northeastern states.
In a letter to Union home minister Rajnath Singh and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, NEC member CK Das appealed to them to reduce the minimum height of 160 cm to 156 cm for Khasi, Jaintia and Garo youths and also others belonging to indigenous ethnic groups of the region.
Das also requested that the same reduction may be extended to female candidates as well. The letter from the NEC member came after a petition by Meghalaya Congress legislator George B Lyngdoh, who had observed that many of the local youths could not measure to the minimum prescribed height of 160 cm.
“Meghalaya ranks very high in unemployment rate. Poor absorption in the central government employment avenues only aggravates the current problem. The state had faced the brunt of militancy for years before the government could rein in the forces of terror and integrating the misguided youths again with the mainstream,” he noted. However, he pointed out that till sufficient avenues are created to accommodate the youths in meaningful employment, they may be lured to illegal activities as a source of livelihood. Lyngdoh said there was an urgent need to reduce the minimum prescribed height for the local youths applying for jobs in the army and paramilitary forces. In his letter, Das pointed out that recruitment of people from this region has been on since the annexation of Assam in 1826.
“The legislator’s observation that poor absorption of local youths in central government employment avenues aggravates the current acute unemployment problem in Meghalaya; and in our opinion, this is true for the entire region. If sufficient number of able bodied from the local ethnic communities of the region can also be recruited in the army and paramilitary forces, it may reduce the problem of unemployment in the Northeast,” he said.