Meghalaya Govt to resume recruitment process soon: CM Sangma

VPP demanded halting the recruitment process until the Reservation Policy for jobs is deliberated upon and reviewed

Meghalaya government would soon resume the recruitment process to fill up vacancies in the different departments. This would be as soon as the amemded Office Memorandum (OM) for the Reservation Roster is notified over the next couple of days, said Chief Minister Conrad Sangma today.

“The Office Memorandum (OM) for the reservation roster amendments were put up today (before the Cabinet) to be made in the reservation roster so that the Reservation Roster OM is clear. The recommendations given by the all-party committee has been included to amend the OM. With these amendments now in the OM, the process of recruitments will also start after the OM for the reservation roster that will come out most likely in the next few days,” said CM Sangma briefing the media after the Cabinet meeting.

The Voice of the People’s Party (VPP) had demanded halting the job recruitment process until a roster system of the job Reservation Policy is deliberated upon.

Reacting to this CM Sangma said, “The recruitment process cannot be stopped. If we put a stop to the recruitment process then many youngsters who are meant to get jobs and who are going to apply for them will become overage as the days go by and will suffer, hence in the larger interest and so that the youth gets jobs while the review of the committees deliberate on the different aspects of Reservation Policy, the recruiting process will be continued.”

In response to a query about whether the Reservation Roster will be prospective or retrospective, the CM stated that the roster is a continuous process and it is required to know where we are in the roster at present.

CM Sangma reaffirmed that the roster is a continuous process, that continuity exists, and that it began in 1972. “Over many years, certain communities in certain places and other communities in others have filled the vacant positions. Therefore, regardless of the possibility that those slots were filled, roster charting is necessary to enable us to know our current place in the roster”, CM Sangma said.

The Meghalaya Cabinet today announced the setting up of a three-member Search Committee to be headed by the Chief Secretary of Meghalaya to search for experts for the 5-member Expert Committee that would review the Reservation Policy.

Earlier, the state government had constituted a 12-member committee headed by Health Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh to discuss the implementation of the Roster System and the Reservation Policy. The committee has been given a month’s time to submit its report.

The implementation of the Roster System in the State Reservation Policy retrospectively has turned into a political hot potato with many groups as well as political parties such as–Voice of the People Party (VVP), KHNAM, Achik Conscious Holistically Integrated Krima (ACHIK), the Khasi Students Union claiming that the roster system is flawed since it is detrimental to job seekers from the Khasi and Jaintia communities.

The roster system determines the reservation of posts for different categories. Since 1972, a total of 40% of state government positions have been set aside for the Garo and Khasi groups, 5% for other in-state tribes, and 15% for the general population.

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