Opposition leader Mukul Sangma has lamented the state government’s lack of interest in resolving the ongoing crisis at the North Eastern Hill University. “There is no visible endeavour to resolve the NEHU problem even though it is having a bearing on the higher education environment,” he told reporters on Friday. Pointing out that it is the government’s responsibility to resolve the crisis going on for months, he said the state and central governments must find a way out of the mess that has earned the university a bad name.
The state government has maintained that it has a limited scope to intervene and resolve the crisis since the NEHU is a central university. Amid the crisis, two senior officials from the Ministry of Education visited the university’s Shillong campus. Additional Secretary Sunil Kumar Barnwal and Director of Higher Education Subrat Kumar Pradhan held back-to-back meetings with faculty members, deans, and the heads of departments.
They said they are optimistic that the situation in the university will be normal soon, despite the NEHUSU sticking to its demand that Vice Chancellor Prabha Shankar Shukla be removed. Meanwhile, Sangma objected to the idea of outsourcing jobs in various government-run companies.