SHILLONG, April 4: The Hynniewtrep Youth Council (HYC) on Friday locked the office of the Director of North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health & Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS), N. Mehta, following his failure to address the four-point charter of demands related to process of job recruitment in the institute.

Activists of the HYC staged a surprise protest and stormed the office of the Director of NEIGRIHMS after the expiry of the seven-day ultimatum given to him.

Security personnel of the institute were helpless as protesters forced their way to Mehta’s office chamber demanding him to vacate immediately. Mehta and his officials were forced to come out of the administrative block.

HYC president Roy Kupar Synrem, while talking to Mehta outside the Director’s Administrative Block, said, “We have submitted a memorandum in this regards since March 24 and the seven-day ultimatum given to you has ended today. Since there was no response from your office, we have no other option but to stage this protest.”

When Mehta conveyed that the institute was willing to cooperate and comply with the demands and was preparing a letter in response to the same, Synrem however said, “You should have told us like that but you didn’t even communicate anything to the organization despite the ultimatum served.”

Later, the Director invited the HYC leaders for discussion on the issue.

After the meeting, Synrem informed that the organization has received a written assurance from the Director that the institute will set up an examination centre within the state of Meghalaya and HLL, which is recognized by the central government, will be the recruiting agency.

He said one of the main demands of the HYC was the implementation of the 80:20 female to male ratio as was done in AIIMS and other institutions.

“In this regard, the Director has assured that he would immediately write to the Union Health Ministry to get a clarification or an approval on whether or not NEIGRIHMS can implement this 80:20 female to male ratio because as it is there is no such provisions in the recruitment rules (RR) of the institute. Therefore, to implement this, NEIGRIHMS has to amend the RR and for that they would require the approval of the union health ministry,” Synrem said.

“However, we have made it very clear that we will not allow the recruitment process to move forward if the demand for 80:20 female to male ratio is not implemented by the institute,” he added.

Another point of contention was that only 2 seats out of 107 vacancies for the posts of Nursing Officer have been allocated for Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates, instead of the mandated 7.5% reservation for STs i.e. 8 seats.

However, the HYC president demanded implementation of 44% reservation for ST as per OM of the Ministry of Personnel in which NEIGRIHMS has taken some steps. “The purpose is to ensure our people gets more employment opportunities within NEIGRIHMS, NEHU, central institutes because at the end of the day the government of Meghalaya has given them land to set up their institutes here with an objective that our people will get jobs and admission. But what has happened in all these institutions is that it goes against that expectation. This has prompted us to lock the office of the director and administrative block,” he explained.

Synrem further said HYC would wait and watch before taking the next course of action on the issue.

“The online application will end on April 20, so maybe by that time we will know if our demands are met or not. We are clear that the recruitment process will not be allowed if 80:20 female to male ratio is not implemented,” he maintained.

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