The Non-Teaching Staff Association of the North Eastern Hill University (NEHUNSA) called for an indefinite strike in the examination department from September 20 to protest against the contract extension of the current officer on special duty (OSD).
“The future of the students of the university, as well as those in the affiliated colleges, is at stake if the current OSD is allowed to continue. Therefore, in the general body meeting held today, it was resolved that the examination department would go on strike from September 20, until further notice,” NEHUNSA said in a statement.
The current OSD retired as controller of examination on December 31, 2020, and was extended as OSD from then till date.
It may be noted that for the interest of the students of NEHU, the confidential section of the examination department is exempted, it said.
On the points of protest, the association said printing of marksheets cannot be done due to the unavailability of consumables (UG marksheet papers, stickers, mark list). The OSD was informed of the matter but no action was taken from his end about the issue, for the last three months.
“Further, we learned that the papers have the necessary security features for printing certificates (migration, degree, provisional, etc.) for the passed-out students since convocation is unavailable. The OSD has taken no action till date. Most of the printers in the post graduate section and certificate cell are outdated and most are out of order,” it stated.
It further stated: “The concerned officer, purchase & store (P&S) section, has inquired whether there is a need to replace the heavy-duty printer, but no comments were given by the OSD on the concerned file. Despite the students making the required payments for postage charges involving their transcripts, MPhil, PhD thesis, important letters, etc., the department was not in a position to post the mentioned documents due to the non-availability of funds as the OSD never initiated the process of getting the funds allocated to the department.”
“We were also informed that the required maintenance fees to software vendor for UG computer software, upgradation of the server or network at NEHU were not taken up for the last three years. This is a very critical issue since all the examination department’s data is stored in this database,” the association added.
