TURA: Local bodies from Tura including the Nokma Council, Senior Citizens’ Forum, Pensioners’ Association, Garo Graduates’ Union (GGU), Mothers’ Union, New Tura Development Forum (NTDF) and the A’chik Literature Society (ALS) have dashed off a letter to President, Ram Nath Kovind demanding the up-gradation of infrastructure of the North Eastern Hill University, Tura Campus.
In their memorandum to the President, the local bodies demanded the expansion of the university’s campus in Tura with the introduction of popular subjects like Economics and Statistics, Public Administration, Education and Psychology, Philosophy, Geography, Linguistics, Journalism and Mass Communication and others in the Arts stream and those like mathematics, Chemistry, Physics, Botany, Biology, Zoology, Agriculture etc in the Science stream.
“There is a demand for these subjects in Garo Hills and the Shillong Campus alone cannot accommodate them. Many students cannot afford to study outside as they come from economically poor backgrounds,” the organizations said.
They added that though it has been 23 years since its establishment, the Tura Campus has only 11 departments as compared to Shillong which has 37 teaching departments with a number of centres and cells.
The organizations also sought the immediate creation, advertisement and filling up of posts for the administrative office staff from the level of LDC and others as there is severe shortage of staff.
“Since its establishment, the Tura campus is based on the services of repatriated non-teaching staff from the erstwhile Nagaland and Mizoram campuses. The repatriates came on personal posts which mean that their posts return to the NEHU Headquarters. There are 36 posts vacated by the repatriates including those through resignation, retirement, expiry and transfer,” they informed.
With regard to repeated demands for recruitment of office staff being turned down by the authorities citing their excess as against the teaching faculty, the organizations reminded that the Tura campus was understaffed from the beginning and that it was not at fault for the whole of NEHU being overstaffed.
Stating that the work of the regular employees is being done by workers on contractual basis, the organizations urged that the services of these workers be regularized as some of them have been working in their posts for more than 20 years.
The organizations also urged that matters relating to fund allocation including building construction for Central Library is looked into, construction of at least 4 hostels (2 each for boys and girls), academic buildings, quarters including one for Warden, recruitment for Engineering Cell (Civil), creation of publication cell, Campus post office, bank with ATM facility, Central School/Kendriya Vidyala within the campus, shopping complex along with canteen, sports grounds and facilities among others. The organizations also suggested the bi-furcation of NEHU, to separate the Tura Campus from its Shillong headquarters and its full-fledged up-gradation to Tura Central University.