Meghalaya health minister Ampareen Lyngdoh on September 4 assured that the government will revoke the allocation of MBBS seats if the documents of any applicant are found to be untrue and fraudulent.
“We have anyways ensured that every applicant who has applied for allocation of seats sign an undertaking that if any document is found to be untrue and fraudulent, their seat will stand revoked,” Lyngdoh told reporters after meeting with a delegation of the Khasi Students’ Union (KSU). The delegation has sought the minister’s intervention into the credibility of certificates submitted by the applicants to avail the medical seats under the Meghalaya quota.
She informed that the health department had already written to all the deputy commissioners (DCs) to verify the documents submitted by applicants. Based on the DCs’ reply, the department had announced the first list of 92 medical seats recently.
Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh however said that the delegation of the KSU was not satisfied with the verification done at the district level.
“When these kinds of allegations come it is but fit for the Department of Health to again send re-verification based on specific indicators for specific cases. We have requested the KSU to submit in writing, which is very important otherwise there will be no justification for us to do any other verification other than the one already done,” she added.
Informing that the Centre has allotted two more medical seats for Meghalaya, the minister said: “We will have a revised list of candidates to ensure that even the two seats that have come are made available on the public domain for necessary scrutiny by all concerns.”
Lyngdoh said that the government cannot delay the allotment of seats anymore because most of the institutions are giving deadlines to all who are availing the seats to report to their institutions by September 1, 2 and 3.
“We are already running late. Therefore, we will not hold the entire list because it will be unfair to hold the whole list but whenever letters of complaints on certain applicants come we will allow them to go ahead with claiming their seats and start with their admission procedures but if after verification, any defect is found then we already have given them an undertaking where they will have to sign and we can revoke the seats at any point of time,” she said.
“Whether or not these seats will become invalid, whether or not the government of Meghalaya will lose these seats is something we now have to consider let this verification happen on certain complaint letters received by certain complainants and we will see how it goes. I hope we will not lose seats because of this confusion. We will try our best to save every seat that the state of Meghalaya is being given in the central pool of MBBS seats,” Lyngdoh added further.
Speaking to the media after the meeting, KSU general secretary Donald V Thabah said the union had found out that some people with dubious antecedents were also included in the list released by the health department recently.
“One of the criteria for applying for medical seats under the state quota is that you have to have a permanent resident certificate (PRC) but 9 students from the open category did not submit PRC but they give only the provisional PRC (PPRC) which is valid either for 3 months or 12 months. Since criteria is PRC, PPRC is not eligible to get the MBBS quota,” he said while informing that the minister had assured the delegation that the list will be put on hold.
He said that KSU has also decided to submit a complaint so that a thorough investigation into the matter can be conducted.
Thabah also informed that the minister had assured that the two Khasi students, who were placed in the first and second position in the list under the Khasi-Jaintia category, will now be elevated to the open category and in their place two more Khasi students who are in the waiting list will be included in the list.
Earlier, the minister also met a delegation of the Voice of the People Party (VPP) on the same issue.
“Everybody was on the same page that in order to ensure we safeguard the allocation of seats, we must make sure that everything is done (in a proper way),” she added.
