NEHUNSA calls for indefinite strike against contract extension of OSD in Examination dept

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaSeptember 19, 2022

The Non-Teaching Staff Association of the North Eastern Hill University (NEHUNSA) on Monday called for an indefinite strike in the Examination Department from Tuesday 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 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 having the necessary security features for printing Certificates (Migration, Degree, Provisional, etc.) for the passed out students since convocation are not available. No action has been taken by the OSD till date. Most of the printers in the Post Graduate Section and Certificate Cell are outdated and most are out of order. 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 non-availability of funds as the OSD never initiated the process of getting the funds allocated to the Department,” it said.

“We were also informed that the required maintenance fees to Software Vendor for UG Computer Software, Upgradation of the Server/Network 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 said.