SHILLONG, Oct 20: The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has forwarded the complaints filed by the NEHU Teachers’ Association against Vice Chancellor Prabha Shankar Shukla to the Ministry of Education and the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST).
NEHUTA president Lakhon Kma told The Shillong Times on Sunday that they received a letter from the PMO last week in this regard.
“We got this response after we had uploaded our grievances in the PMO’s grievance portal,” Kma said.
He further informed that they had also received a communication from the President of India’s office that their grievances have been referred to the Ministry of Education.
The NEHUTA president said they are waiting for a response from the NCST.
“We are not sure if any communication has been sent to the VC by the NCST,” he said.
Kma also informed that the association is internally building up pressure on the VC to rectify all his mistakes.
Earlier, NEHUTA had accused the NEHU Vice Chancellor of working against the interest of locals by appointing people from outside Meghalaya to various positions in the university.
In a complaint sent to NCST member Nirupam Chakma, the NEHUTA said, “He (Prof. Shukla) has attempted to completely change the harmonious tribal, ethnic and other Indian character of NEHU into a monolith of Hindu Brahminical University.”
NEHUTA also said that Prof. Shukla appointed retired Army Colonel Omkar Singh as Controller of Examinations by keeping out qualified, academically experienced and intellectually sound candidates of tribal and ethnic origins from Meghalaya.
“He imported a candidate without much credentials in the field of running academic administration and a complex thing like conduct of office of the Controller of Examinations. This person retired from a school and is without any experience of working in any college or university. In spite of having well-qualified tribal candidates, who have taught in university and colleges for decades, he still appointed Omkar Singh which smacks of favouritism and nepotism. Due to his serious lack of understanding of the functioning of the university system, the declaration of results was getting delayed at every level putting the careers of thousands of tribal students at stake,” NEHUTA said.
The association also said that Omkar Singh was later appointed as Registrar of NEHU whose failure resulted in total mayhem during the CUET undergraduate examination in NEHU on May 15, 2024 as he was the supervisor of the CUET centre in the university.
