Delayed Justice for Candidates Appearing for Assistant Architect Post
Editor,
The prolonged delay in declaring the results of the interview for four Assistant Architect posts conducted by the Urban Affairs Department has once again exposed the government’s alarming, lackadaisical attitude toward the aspirations of Meghalaya’s educated youth.
It is learnt that the interviews for these posts were completed on February 27 this year. Over four months have passed, yet the results remain mysteriously stuck somewhere in the corridors of the Secretariat. What is causing this delay? Why are the selected candidates being kept in the dark? More importantly, who should be held accountable for this administrative paralysis?
At a time when unemployment continues to haunt thousands of qualified young people and when the State itself faces a shortage of professional architects, the government’s silence is both baffling and unacceptable. The delay sends a disturbing message that merit, transparency and efficiency are no longer priorities in public recruitment.
The irony is hard to miss. While deserving local professionals wait endlessly for the outcome of a legally conducted recruitment process, government departments increasingly depend on consultants for projects that qualified architects from within the State could very well handle. Such a trend not only undermines local talent but also raises questions about the government’s commitment to creating employment opportunities for its own youth.
The NPP-led government often speaks about transparency, accountability and youth empowerment. The Chief Minister is widely projected as a people’s leader who understands the concerns of the younger generation. However, such claims ring hollow when recruitment processes are left hanging without explanation. Transparency is not a slogan; it is demonstrated through timely action and public accountability.
The candidates who appeared for the interview deserve answers. They have invested years in acquiring professional qualifications and have patiently complied with every requirement of the recruitment process. Keeping their fate in abeyance indefinitely is unfair, insensitive and contrary to the principles of good governance.
As the saying goes, “Justice delayed is justice denied.” If the delay continues, one cannot rule out the possibility of aggrieved candidates seeking legal recourse. Should that happen, the government will have to explain why a duly advertised post, for which interviews have already been completed, remains without a declared result.
The government must immediately clarify the reasons behind the delay and publish the results without further procrastination. Public institutions exist to serve the people, not to subject them to endless uncertainty. Silence and inaction only deepen public suspicion and erode confidence in the system.
Yours etc.,
Bhalangki Blah
Shillong
Is India Really a Free and Democratic Country?
Editor,
Can India be called a free and democratic country when a tribal woman is forced to carry her infirm husband on her back to reach a government hospital which is clearly a naked bureaucratic arrogance in the Akola district of Maharashtra. Yes a tribal woman had to literally physically carry her paralysed husband on her back through the corridors of a government medical college while clutching a small child. This is not merely a heartbreaking image but it makes us question the system that allows such a situation to happen.
This is an indictment of India’s public healthcare system. The viral video from Government Medical College, Akola, should shame every official responsible for health administration in this country. A brain-stroke patient requiring urgent medical attention was reduced to a burden that his wife had to physically carry from one department to another because no stretcher, wheelchair, attendant or emergency response mechanism was available. If this is not institutional failure, then what is?
What makes the episode even more disturbing is the response of the hospital administration. Instead of acknowledging the glaring lapse and apologising unconditionally, officials chose to hide behind technicalities. The woman allegedly arrived outside OPD hours. She was supposedly unable to complete documentation. She did not specifically ask for a stretcher. Such explanations reveal a mindset that values paperwork over patients and procedure over compassion. Since when has a critically ill patient needed to fill forms before receiving basic human assistance? Since when must an illiterate tribal woman know hospital protocols before she qualifies for empathy? And since when does a public hospital wait for a desperate family to ask for a stretcher before offering one?
The Hospital Dean’s initial suggestion that the video could be AI-generated or part of a conspiracy to malign the institution only compounds the tragedy. In India, denial has become the first response to administrative failure. Rather than confronting uncomfortable truths, authorities seek refuge in excuses, inquiries and damage control.
The incident also exposes a larger reality. Politicians routinely boast of world-class healthcare schemes, digital health missions and record budget allocations. Yet for millions of poor Indians, especially tribals and rural families, access to healthcare remains a daily battle against neglect, indifference and bureaucratic arrogance. Grand announcements mean little when a woman must become an ambulance, a stretcher and a caregiver all at once. The inquiry ordered by the hospital may identify individual lapses. But the real culprit is a system that has normalised suffering among the poor. The Akola incident should not be viewed as an aberration, it is a symptom of a deeper disease afflicting public healthcare. A civilised society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable citizens. In Akola, the system failed that test spectacularly. The woman carried her husband. The government failed to carry out its most basic responsibility. Such incidents send shivers up the spine.
The administrative response from GMC Akola has further fuelled the controversy. The Dean, Dr. Sanjay Sonune pointed to systemic rules, explaining that patients are required to complete prerequisites and formal paperwork before structural transport and departmental shifting take place. The administration argued that because the family was uneducated, they did not navigate the administrative desks or make a formal request for equipment.
Furthermore, the institution raised suspicions about the intent behind the video recording, suggesting it was timed to damage the hospital’s public image. Local health advocates, however, have countered this defence, stating that GMC Akola is notorious for severe shortages of basic wheel-support infrastructure, regularly forcing poor relatives to manually lug frail patients between diagnostic blocks.
This incident is not an isolated systemic failure in the state’s public healthcare framework. Just recently, a similarly devastating event occurred at a government hospital in Jalalgaon, where a grandfather was forced to sit overnight holding the body of his two-and-a-half-month-old granddaughter due to administrative lapses. The unfolding crisis in Akola underscores how bureaucratic delays and a lack of baseline empathy continue to heavily penalize vulnerable and marginalised communities who cannot afford private health care.
What happened at GMC Akola is a devastating reminder of how our public systems fail those who need them most. To watch a woman bear the literal and metaphorical weight of an entire failing healthcare system on her back while hospital staff look on, shatters the very definition of basic human kindness. Bureaucracy, paperwork, and Aadhaar cards must never become roadblocks to saving a human life.
An emergency room should operate on empathy first, and protocol second. We hope this internal probe results in real, tangible accountability and a permanent fix to infrastructure shortages, rather than just empty administrative promises. True progress as a society lies in building communities where the vulnerable are lifted up by our systems, not left to struggle in the dark.
Yours etc.,
Yash Pal Ralhan,
Via email
