Dimapur, October 21 : The Eastern Nagaland College Students' Union (ENCSU) has appealed to the Governor to intervene in the union’s demand for redress over the matter of NSEE-II results and the matter of MBBS-seat allocation.
The union issued on Friday a copy of a representation addressed to the Governor appealing to him to “intervene within few days and give back our due share of 4 MBBS seats as the state government has failed miserably even after a lapse of 85 days.”
Listing out their grievances, the union stated that it did not ‘find’ the selections to the MBBS and BDS seats ‘free and fair’ with the state’s government ‘over the past few years.’ The results declared by the department of Technical Education on July 15, 2016, “Failed to implement the government policy on Backward Reservation by denying 4 MBBS seats to the students from deprived areas,” the union alleged.
“Therefore, we seek an immediate review of the result and allocation of the 4 MBBS seats to the BT candidates.”
According to the government’s policy, 15 % of the seats were reserved for the Backward Tribes of Nagaland, it stated. ‘Hence, out of 45 MBBS seats (excluding 4 additional seats), the BTs were to get 7 seats. However, the distribution of seats has never been fair citing 40% qualifying marks which could actually be done away with. This year, the BTs were allocated only 3 seats out of 7 reserved seats. The union therefore, asked the concern to give back the missing seats to BTs candidates,” the union stated.
The union then queried of the government and the department as to how it could “possibly maintain the uniform cut off mark to all candidates at 40% when you claim 15% reservation for BTs?”
It also accused the authorities of ‘taking away’ 4 MBBS seats reserved for the BTs with the ‘excuse’ that there were no qualified candidates.
‘If there were no candidates qualified to study MBBS than how come the same candidates are found qualified for BDS since the same qualification is prescribed for both MBBS and BDS?’ it asked.
The union also expressed surprise that the government was not rectifying errors committed by some officials of the department ‘for their own vested interests.’
Moreover, the union stated, “The government and the department violated their own assurance given to the ENCSU on 6th September, 2016 not to fill up 4 (four) MBBS seats till the cabinet decides on this matter. Instead, the department internally filled up all the MBBS seats including the 3 (three) additional seats even before the cabinet took decision on 26th September, 2016.”
Further, the department allegedly did not make known the 3 additional MBBS seats to the cabinet during its meeting.
“The department advertised only the fourth additional MBBS seat which was received after the Cabinet meeting. Hence, the ENCSU challenge the department to come out openly in print media about the status of the first 3 (three) additional MBBS seats. It is a live example that the government can do anything to deprive the underprivileged people,” the union added.
