By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, Nov 29: The eight MD (Homeopathy) students of the North Eastern Institute of Ayurveda & Homoeopathy (NEIAH) continued with their indefinite hunger strike on Friday as they did not receive any written assurance from the administration on their three grievances.
NEIAH Deputy Director (Administration), Wanshai Shynret met the agitating students on Friday. He came along with some police personnel who left the institute’s premises after finding out the students were staging a peaceful protest.
Saurabh Singh, a fourth-year Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) student told The Shillong Times that Shynret requested them to convince the hunger strikers for a video conference with AYUSH Secretary, Rajesh Kotecha and the NEIAH director in charge, Manoj Nesari.
The Bachelor of Homeopathic Medicine and Surgery (BHMS) and BAMS students have been staging a sit-in demonstration to express solidarity with the post-graduate MD (Homoeopathy) students.
Singh said the students told Shynret they would convince the PG students to a video conference provided the minutes of the discussion during the video call were recorded.
“The administration rejected this condition. Shynret suddenly came back to the spot where the students had been agitating on Friday at around 6 pm and started the video call meeting only with the AYUSH Secretary and not the director in charge. The video call meeting was started without the consent of the students,” he said.
During the video discussion, the AYUSH Secretary said he was not in a position to give any assurance on the three demands of the students. The students asked him if they should take up the issue with Prime Minister Narendra Modi or the AYUSH Minister.
Kotecha subsequently offered Rs 18,000 plus DA, which works out to Rs 27,000 per PG student. Singh, however, said the PG students declined the offer as Kotecha refused to give a written assurance on the set of demands.
Meanwhile, the health of the agitating PG students on an indefinite hunger strike deteriorated on Friday. Most of them were on drip.
The protest is likely to continue beyond Sunday, December 1.
The grievances of the first batch of MD (Homoeopathy) students are the non-disbursement of the stipends for the past year, non-affiliation of their three-year PG courses with NEHU, and failure to provide them with a guide under the National Commission for Homeopathy (NCH) norms.