Shillong, April 1: The Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) on Tuesday submitted a 10-point charter of demands to the Director of NEIGRIHMS to ensure rights of the indigenous tribals are not infringed during the recruitment process in the institute.

In a letter to the Director of NEIGRIHMS, chairman of the KSU Employment Cell Reuben Najiar said, “The Union would humbly like to request you that immediate action maybe taken in this regard to resolve and take necessary actions as to see that the rights of the indigenous tribals of the state are not infringed and also to uphold the standards of medical care in NEIGRIHMS which has fallen after the former recruitment which recruited ‘left over’ nurses.”

“The Union also request that the present advertisement to be kept in abeyance until the matters are being addressed and steps taken. Any deviation from the above mentioned request will prompt the Union to take a different course of action,” he warned.

Asking the institute to take action on 10-point charter of demands, the KSU said that age limit must be reinstated as 35 years instead of 30 years with other relaxation for reserved categories.

“Based on the advertisement it is seen that the age limit for nursing officer and other posts has been reduced to 30 years and the Pharmacist to 27 years. In the previous years of recruitment, the age limit was always set on 35 years and all of sudden to bring it down to 30 years has impacted the aspiring candidates drastically. The decision of the administration is this regard is totally flawed and illogical as setting a lower age limit will significantly impact the workforce diversity, have economic implications, reduce the talent pool and limit the experience and maturity which is required for the overall effectiveness in medical sector,” Najiar said adding “The amendment made in the Recruitment Rules for limiting the age limit to 30 years must be scrapped and original age limit of 35 years must be put into place with other relaxation for reserved categories.”

Emphasizing the need for a 20:80 male female ratio for nursing officer, Najiar said the previous nursing officer recruitment done in the year 2023 through NORCET was a huge blunder on the path of the NEIGRIHMS administration. In 2023 it was seen that, 194 candidates were selected out of which 175 were male nurses and only 19 female’s nurses were selected. These 175 male nurses are ‘leftovers’ who have not been selected in other institute and have been dump in NEIGRIHMS all because the administration was shortsighted for not having male female ratio of 20:80.

“The recruitment for nursing officer in that very year was also done by NORCET but AIIMS had a 20:80 male female ratio which enable them to grab the best candidates. These male nurses are mostly from Rajasthan and have no experience whatsoever and are a nuisance in the medical sector. Countless complaints have been received by the Union against these male nurses who are incompetent in delivering out their work and are also a threat to the lives of the patients. If the other institution can have a 20:80 ratio then what is stopping NEIGRIHMS also,” he added.

Further, the KSU has demanded that experience certificates only from 50 bedded hospitals must be removed and experience certificates from registered hospitals must be taken into consideration, Recruitment must be done through offline mode (OMR), Roster register must be reviewed and plot accordingly as per reservation allotted, there has to be a clear indication of backlog vacancies and as to how many recruitment years they remained vacant and unfilled and as such has to be de-reserved and allotted elsewhere.

The KSU also demanded that OBC reservation must be abolished in Group B & C in Meghalaya since there is no OBC list, Scheduled Caste reservation in Group B must be cut down to 1% as reserved in Group C based on population, OBC reservation of 27% in Group B and 5% in Group C must be reverted back to Scheduled Tribes of the State of Meghalaya (Khasi/ Jaintia/ Garo) and that previous year recruitment also needs to be scrutinized based on the above-mentioned points and actions must be taken accordingly.

Also Read: Shillong College begins construction of its extended campus at Laitlyngkot

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