By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, April 1: The Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) on Tuesday said it will not allow NEIGRIHMS to conduct the recruitment of nurses if the exercise is against the interest of the local candidates.
Talking to reporters after a meeting with NEIGRIHMS director Nalin Mehta, the KSU’s Employment Monitoring Cell chairman, Reuben Najiar, said the union will wait for the director’s reply to the questions in the memorandum submitted to him.
Najiar said the director sought a week to reply to their queries. “We will not allow the recruitment of nurses if we are unhappy with his reply,” he said.
He also said the advertisement should be kept in abeyance until the matter is addressed and steps taken.
Najiar warned of a “different course of action” if the recruitment does not serve the interest of local candidates.
He said the union observed various anomalies in the advertisement published on March 22.
“Along with other relaxations, we want the upper age limit for the reserved categories to be 35 years instead of 30 years,” he said.
According to him, the institution decided to bring down the upper age limit without any notification, which will be disadvantageous for the local candidates.
Najiar pointed out that there was no recruitment for two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to a loss of time.
The KSU also demanded a 20:80 male-female ratio for nursing officers, as followed in AIIMS and other medical institutes.
“Due to this, 190 posts out of the 200 posts during the earlier recruitment were allocated to male candidates, and all of them came from Rajasthan. Going by the complaints from patients, most of them are incompetent,” Najiar said.
He also said only two of the 105 vacant posts for nursing officers are reserved for the Scheduled Tribes.
Najiar said the recruitment must be done through offline mode (OMR) even though NEIGRIHMS is keen to conduct the examination online.
According to him, the online examination is not feasible in Meghalaya due to the lack of proper infrastructure.
“Our students will be forced to appear for the online examination outside the state, which will be a burden for those in the lower income groups,” he said. Najiar also said the roster register must be reviewed and adjusted according to the reservation allotted.
“There has to be a clear indication of backlog vacancies and how long they have remained vacant so that they can be de-reserved and allocated elsewhere,” he added.
He said the OBC reservation must be abolished in Groups B and C in Meghalaya as the state does not have an OBC list.
Najiar also demanded slashing the quota for the Scheduled Castes in Group B to 1%.
“We have demanded that the OBC reservation of 27% in Group B and 5% in Group C be given to the Scheduled Tribes of Meghalaya (Khasi/Jaintia/Garo),” he said.
He further said the recruitment in 2024 needs to be scrutinised based on the above-mentioned points and action taken accordingly.
Najiar called upon the director to resolve and take necessary action to ensure the rights of Meghalaya’s indigenous communities are not infringed upon and to uphold the standard of medical care in NEIGRIHMS, which “fell after the recruitment of leftover nurses” earlier.
He, however, said the meeting with the director was inconclusive. “The director said he was following the directive of the ministry concerned, but we have insisted that NEIGRIHMS needs to cater to the needs of the local candidates,” he said.
He added that a KSU team will meet the Shillong and Tura MPs to impress upon them the need to raise the matter in Parliament and with the ministry concerned.