SHILLONG, June 6: The state government has appointed a three-member search committee, headed by Chief Secretary DP Wahlang, to recommend names for the constitution of a five-member expert committee to review the Meghalaya State Reservation Policy of 1972.
“A three-member committee has been put up as a search committee to look for experts who will become a part of the expert committee,” Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma told reporters after a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
He said the government decided that the Chief Secretary will head the search committee and it will consist of one member from the Law Department and another from the Department of Personnel.
“It was recommended that it should be a five-member expert committee with experts drawn from different fields as was mentioned in the notification,” Sangma said.
He was hopeful that the names of the experts would be recommended to the government at the earliest.
To a query, he said the search committee will look into the demand that the expert committee has members also from the state.
Meanwhile, the Cabinet amended the May 2022 office memorandum for the reservation roster and decided to restart the recruitment process.
Stating that the office memo for the reservation roster amendments was put up on Tuesday for clarity, Sangma said, “With these amendments, the process of requirement will also start.
“The May 2022 office memorandum is going to be amended now to include certain aspects which we will clarify,” he added.
The CM said it will be technically complicated to give all the facts but the recommendations of the all-party committee have been included to amend the office memorandum.
On the demand to keep the recruitment process on hold, he said, “Recruitments cannot stop. If you put a stop to recruitment, then many of our youngsters, who are meant to get jobs and going to apply for them, will exceed the age.”
“The roster is a continuous process and the continuity starts with 1972. We have been maintaining that for the past many years. The different positions that are there have been filled up by certain communities in some cases and by different communities in certain cases,” Sangma said.
He added that the roster plotting is required to know where the state stands in the roster today.
“The data plotted is going to enable us to know from which particular serial number it has to start now,” the CM said.
“That is the main purpose and hence, the advertisements will take place from that serial number. That is the purpose of plotting the numbers from 1972. We are doing it wherever the data is available. We are starting from one wherever the data is not available,” he added.
