Meghalaya CS to meet Secretary, education Ministry over NEHU issue

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaJanuary 7, 2025

Chief Secretary DP Wahlang will be meeting the secretary and additional secretary in-charge higher education, government of India on January 13, for resolving the issue related to the North Eastern Hill University (NEHU).

Informing this on Tuesday, Wahlang said, “I am in touch with the secretary, government of India as well as the additional secretary. In fact, I will be meeting the secretary on Monday (January 13) to give him a brief of what happened as he just joined as the secretary of higher education. I will be meeting him and also advise him on what needs to be done for NEHU and I hope we should see a breakthrough soon.”

The Ministry of Education had constituted a two-member committee to probe into the alleged irregularities and administrative failures in the NEHU, which had led to protests led by the NEHUSU and KSU demanding the immediate removal of the incumbent vice chancellor Prof PS Shukla.

Asked, the CS said, “From the law and order point of view, our duty is to ensure that the law and order is conducive and there is no breaking down of the law and order but as far as the affairs of the university is concerned, it is a central university, we have to be very cautious, it is not a state university, we cannot take any decision on behalf of NEHU.”

He informed that the two-member committee had already submitted its report to the ministry.

“The report has been perused by the ministry also but what decision they have taken that has not been conveyed to us,” he added.

Further, Wahlang said, “We have some specific agendas to discuss and we hope that these agendas will lead to solutions to the NEHU issue.” 

“Because it is not state university, we look basically from the law and order point of view, we dont want that the students should suffer because of any law and order issue or problems so that’s how we intervene but the internal affairs of NEHU is not in the hands of the state government or the education department of the state,” he reiterated.