By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, Sep 22: Health and Family Welfare Minister, Ampareen Lyngdoh told the Assembly on Friday that the re-verification of two MBBS candidates in the open category is awaited.
In a written statement laid in the House, she also said that the matter pertaining to ambiguity in the issuance of Permanent Residence Certificate (PRC) to open category students by the Deputy Commissioners in some districts has been referred to Home (political) and Law departments seeking clarity.
Stating that the respective DCs were asked to ascertain permanent residency status as claimed by the candidates, she said the results of MBBS seat allocation was announced on August 31, 2023 based on the reports of the DCs and the documents submitted. She said subsequently upon receipt of two additional seats under Central Pool, the seat allocation was revised on September 4.
She said following representations by some civil society organisations, the department issued a notification staying the allocation of seats in the open category students pending re-verification of their residency status as per the Home (political) department’s office memorandum.
Documents pertaining to the permanent residency status of some candidates such as Mehbub Hassan, Monimul Ekram Mondal, Mahmodul Islam, Atida Zaman, Chiranjit Kumar Paul, Angoor Zaman Hoque, Abul Kalam Golam Mahdi Alom and Ayush Kumar were sent for re-verification. Except for Monimul Ekram Mondal and Abul Kalam Golam Mahdi Alom, the re-verification documents of all have been received.
“In light of the ambiguity on the part of district administration on the issue of PRC, since some districts issued provisional PRC to the open category students earlier, it was decided to refer the matter to Home (Political) as well as Law Department seeking clarity on the matter. Verification of 2(two) more candidates are awaited,” Lyngdoh said.
“I would like to say that notwithstanding the criticism in the press, the Health & Family Welfare Department, in all fairness, has done due diligence on the matter to be just to the state and its people,” she stated.
Meghalaya was allotted 92 seats in the current academic year – Central Pool-52, RIMS Imphal-13, NEIGRIHMS-14, Tripura-3 and Assam-10.
Lyngdoh said counselling was conducted by the Director of Health Services (MI) on August 17 and 18, 2023 and all students were asked to submit their choices from 1 to 54 in the order of preference. Seats were allocated as per the MBBS seat allocation policy issued by the department through office memorandum based on state’s reservation policy. For the open category, the seats will be allotted solely based on merit, she said.
For all other categories, including Khasi & Jaintia, Garo, CS and OST, the seats will be equitably allocated to each category as per category rank, Lyngdoh said.
In the first round, all the first rankers in each category will be allocated seats. In the second round, all second rankers will be allocated seats and this process will be repeated until all seats are exhausted.
It was informed that the category-wise merit list was prepared as per NEET score and when NEET score was the same, then PCB score was taken into consideration to decide merit.