SHILLONG, APR 9: Deputy Chief Minister in-charge Home (Police) Prestone Tynsong on Tuesday said that physical fitness is an important criterion for recruitment in the Meghalaya police force.

He was rubbishing the recent statement made by the opposition Voice of the People Party (VPP) legislator from North Shillong Adelbert Nongrum that the advertisement to the posts in the police force in Meghalaya is ‘illegal’.

Speaking to reporters, Tynsong said Nongrum has failed to go through the details of the office memorandum (OM) before jumping to such conclusions that it is illegal.

“He (Nongrum) went to read only the first paragraph…and left out the last paragraph (of the OM), which clearly indicated that this OM will not be applicable to a few government departments like home (police), forest and environment, ERTS and few others.”

On January 24, the State Cabinet had approved the minimum and maximum age limit for recruitment into the four departments – Civil Defence and Home Guards, Excise, Registration, Taxation and Stamps (ERTS), Forest and Environment and Home (Police) – of the state government.

“Why we thought of doing so its because there are such posts where the applicants – both boys and girls if their age is relaxed or if their age is treated normally like the OM of 2022 by saying 37 years after relaxation means it will be difficult as physical fitness is one of the criteria,” Tynsong said.

“Like in the police department, we really need the physical fitness of those applicants. Number one, they have to go for running, number two they have to complete all the process of physical fitness and even after selection to their respective posts, they have to again go for further training, the training is very hard – so therefore, we need to make sure that they are physically fit,” he stated.

Tynsong said on this ground, the government has decided unanimously to ensure such posts are exempted from the general OM (as far as age limit is concerned).

“Therefore, the central recruitment board of police has already sought the approval of the cabinet and ultimately the cabinet has already approved the age limit of the applicants as per the detailed indication made in the last advertisement. So now for this unarmed branch sub inspector, the age limit is from 20 to 27 plus relaxation of 5 years means 32 years then for the armed/unarmed branch constables and firemen, driver MPRO the age limit is 18 to 21 plus five means 26 years old and the last one regarding the followers is 18 to 27 plus five means 32 years old,” he explained.

“These are the age limits where we have considered and we did that as I said to you after judiciously studying, consultation made with other counterpart state governments and we found out that this is the right age limit to these sections of police force in the Meghalaya police department,” he added.

Further, the deputy CM urged the people not to ignore the statement made by Nongrum.

“I would request once again that the youth both male and female, should not listen to this statement made by the member, they should stick to it and be ready to go for an online application,” he said.

He informed that the government is still seeking clearance from the Election Commission of India on the matter. “Once it is approved then we will again accordingly inform all the concerned to start their online application and the online application is proposed to be ended by May 31, 2024,” he added.

Also Read: VPP urges ECI to take steps against proxy voting

Also Watch

Find latest news from every corner of Northeast India at hubnetwork.in, your online source for breaking news, video coverage.

Also, Follow us on-

Twitter-twitter.com/nemediahub

Youtube channel- www.youtube.com/@NortheastMediaHub2020

Instagram- www.instagram.com/ne_media_hub