SHILLONG, July 26: The State Cabinet on Tuesday approved the rules for the Conduct of Departmental Examinations 2022 as a result of which examinations for IAS probationers of the Assam-Meghalaya joint cadre will be conducted by the Meghalaya Public Service Commission (MPSC). Earlier, these examinations would be conducted by the Assam Public Service Commission.
In this regard, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said, “For IAS, we have departmental exams being conducted by Assam Public Service Commission since we do not have rules and procedures to conduct exams here. The cabinet today decided that we will have examinations centres out here in terms of the departmental centers.”
The CM said the exams will be conducted through MPSC and the syllabus will be oriented towards matters that are regarding the state and probationers will have the option to use the indigenous languages — Khasi and Garo — in the departmental exams.
“These are for IAS probationers of the Assam-Meghalaya joint cadres and the allotted segment to Meghalaya will be having departmental exams in Meghalaya. We are not talking about IAS exams but (exams for) the IAS probationers,” he added.
According to Conrad, instead of having different exams for different departments, the MPSC will club exams in one go and exams will be held together in the interest of saving time, avoid duplication and to streamline the working of the MPSC.
Cabinet has also approved the proposal for grouping of posts carrying the same scale of pay with similar qualifications in one advertisement. Whereas previously MPSC would conduct different examinations and the selection processes for different departments was time consuming.
“Today, MPSC has to conduct different exams and selection processes for different departments and in the process, it does take a lot of time as sometimes we have the same qualifications and similar skills required for post carrying similar scale. So instead of having five-six different exams for as many different departments, the MPSC will club exams in one go and those that are having the same scale of pay with similar qualification, the exams will be held together,” he said, while emphasising that the reservation policy and necessary roster system need to be followed as per cadres and post.
The Cabinet has approved the amendment to the Meghalaya Prosecution Service Rules 2016 in a bid to fasten the prosecution process, which will include the employment of public prosecutors in districts with the aim to streamline the overall efficiency of the system.
“This was necessary to improve the prosecution procedure and make the process faster and better. It will include regular appointment of public prosecutors in different districts and also overall streamlining of the working system of the prosecution directorate,” he added, adding that this amendment was passed in 2008, but necessary steps to actually streamline the process had not been taken. “We are sure with this, we will be able to increase the overall conviction rate which will lead to overall efficiency of the system,” Sangma said.
The Cabinet has also decided to adopt implementation of prisons manual.
“This (manual), in simple terms, is an SOP on ho prisons should be managed and run, and includes multiple aspects of management and running of prisons including staying and processes to be followed in different situation,” the CM said while pointing out that for the last 50 years, Meghalaya has been using Assam prisons manual, and that a committee had been working on creating prisons manual for Meghalaya for the last two years.
Talking about the amendment to Meghalaya District Court Ministerial Service Rules 2020, the CM said in order to increase the age limit from 27 to 32, the service rules of Meghalaya district courts had to be amended.
The cabinet also approved the proposal for amendment to Meghalaya Goods and Services Act 2017 with the objective to improve the compliance by different taxpayers.
“Large numbers of amendment in terms of compliance have been made and that has been adopted today in terms of an ordinance which will be presented in the next Assembly session,” the CM said.
On the approval of a proposal for amendment to Meghalaya Local Fund Audit Rules 1996, Sangma said that the amendment was intended for update of rules as large numbers of office memos have come out which have to be incorporated in the rules.
