Health Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh on Monday assured that the government will revoke the allocation of MBBS seats, if documents of any applicant are found to be untrue and fraudulent.
Speaking to reporters, Lyngdoh said, “We have anyways ensured that every applicant who has applied for allocation of seats sign an undertaking that if any document found to be untrue and fraudulent, their seat will stand revoked.”
She informed that she had met a delegation of the Khasi Students’ Union (KSU), which has sought her intervention into the matter related to credibility of the certificates submitted by the applicants..
She informed that the 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.
Lyngdoh 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 said.
She informed that the Centre has allotted another 2 medical seats for Meghalaya last night. “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.
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,
He said 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.