Shillong, June 2: The students of the North Eastern Hill University under the banner of North Eastern Hill University Students’ Union (NEHUSU) on Thursday staged a massive protest against the lack of basic amenities in the campus and the need to recruit more teachers and buses.

The demands of the NEHUSU include filling up vacant posts of permanent faculties, appointment of a pro-vice chancellor, to initiate the second phase for School of Technology, hiring of more buses within two weeks, to provide Hostels for all Students by hiring hostels, maintenance of all hostel facilities, to speed up the ongoing construction of girl’s hostel and to initiate construction of more hostels, to initiate the WIFI connectivity within the reach of every Hostel room and every classroom, to upgrade the books and facilities in the libraries within two weeks, to provide separate library for School of Technology, ensure availability of sufficient medicines in the NEHU Health Centre, and that NEHU Health Centre should function at 24×7 with ambulance services.

Other demands include maintenance of facilities in all departments, increase the amount of University Scholarships, initiate coaching for NET exam within the period of two weeks, coaching opportunities for all students such as UPSC, SCC, etc., have Students’ Ward in the NEHU Health Centre, renovation of the Basketball Courts, Football Ground and the construction of a Cricket Pitch.

They also wanted NEHU to ensure active participation of the university in the All-India Inter-University Tournament along with the appointment of Coaches, and to provide weightage in Ph.D admission for students passing from NEHU and domicile of Meghalaya.

Students gathered infront of the Central Library of the varsity and marched to the Vice Chancellor’s office with sloganeering and holding placard ‘unfulfilled issues affects the students’ performances!!!’, ‘hostel facilities should be repaired immediately’, ‘NEHU is for the students so give us our rights’, among others.

Interestingly, the VC Prof. Prabha Shankar Shukla initially did not want to meet the students. Later, when the sloganeering grew louder, he only wanted to talk to few representatives of the students. However, the students wanted the VC to come out from his chamber and talk to all the students and also take questions from him. After much wait and intense sloganeering, and when the students threatened to lock his office, the VC finally came out to meet the students.

However, on most demands, his response remained non-committal, which was met with hackling and loud booing from the students.

The students wanted appointment of teachers as their semester is about to be over but there are no teachers to teach them. Another major issue plaguing the students probably was the water and food in the hostels, with the water being extremely high in iron content and red in colour and most filters out of order and the working ones unable to filter the impurities out. The issue of unhygienic hostel mess food was also raised and many complained to the poor quality of food.

However, probably the worst issue is the non-availability of medicines in the NEHU Health Centre. NEHU has a full-fledged health complex and 3-4 full time doctors but the doctors are not available after 3 PM on weekdays and till 1 PM on Saturdays, and remains closed on weekends and holidays. Plus, it doesn’t have any emergency ward or any space to admit a student in serious condition.

The VC said the medicines will be available from Friday onwards but did not comment to make the Health Centre operational 24×7. He further informed that a committee has been constituted to look into the need for procurement of more buses, while the process to recruit new teachers in underway. He said the recruitment process will be completed by December 2022.

However, he did assure to address all hostel related issues such as contaminated water and unhygienic food within 15 days.

Even so, the VC had a difficult time with the students as he failed to provide assurance on most issues and was subjected to vociferous slogans against him.

The students also demanded written assurance to given to them on the issues agreed upon.

Later, NEHUSU President Mesan Dkhar said that it was shameful that they have to come out and demand for basic needs like clean drinking water and proper medical facilities. Dkhar said that even the hostel mess food was pathetic and it was just recently that the authorities came to survey the food condition.

He, however, said they are quite satisfied that atleast some of their demands will be met but assured that they will ensure that all the other demands are looked into.

Earlier in the day, before the protest took place, the gates of NEHU were locked due to which students and staff of the university and of other institutions housed within the campus were unable to enter the university campus, leading to massive jam on the road for few hours which connects Mawlai, Mawroh, Golflink, Polo, and Mawlai bye-pass. The situation was brought under control after traffic police personnel came to the scene and opened the university gate and regulated the traffic.