Shillong, Sept 30: The Khasi Student Union of the employment monitoring cell Shri Reuben Najiar Chairman and Richestson Malngiang member in the letter sent to Meghalaya Health Minister Dr. M Amapreen Lyngdoh pointed out anomalies in the recruitment process of Staff Nurse and ANM in the result declare 28/September/2024.
The KSU in the letter sent today urged the minister intervention. On the 30th of July, 2024, the MMSRB had called in for application for Staff Nurse which have 164 vacancies and Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM) which have 78 vacancies.
The written examination for both the posts was conducted on the 21st of September, 2024 and the result of the written examination was declared twice on the 28th of September in the morning and was again rectified in the evening which left the candidates totally confused and infuriated.
The Union would like to highlight some key irregularities into the conduct of the examination and the declaration of result by MMSBR. Firstly, for the post of staff nurse, a specific syllabus was mentioned in the advertisement which contain five subjects which will bear 20 marks each but on the day of examination.
The candidates were shock and astonish to find that there are 13 questions which are not related to the specific subjects as mentioned in the advertisement. The candidates feel that they have been cheated by the Recruitment Board who deviated from the advertisement.
In the result which was declared on the morning of 28th of September, it was seen that there are couple of roll numbers which was mentioned twice in the list of eligible candidates.
The Board again published the second result in the evening superseding the first result. After the declaration of the second result, it opened a pandora box where it could be seen that an additional number forty-six roll numbers were added to the second result and again there are as seven roll numbers which has appeared twice.
The repetition of roll numbers cannot be deemed as any clerical errors but it utmost certain that the eligible list has been fabricated with. The declaration of two result on the same day also sparks ambiguity and manipulation of the eligible candidates.
It is also to be stated that the date for physical verification for some roll numbers is mentioned to be in the year 2025, 2026 and 2028 which is totally obnoxious from the Recruitment Board.
This shows the level of incompetency among authorities responsible for declaring the results. Thirdly, the Union would like to mention that the Supreme Court of India in its various judgements for direct recruitment has cited that waiting list or additional list against the total strength of vacancies is not permissible and any deviation thereof is subjected to judicial review.
It can be seen in the list of selected candidates for staff nurse the total vacancies is 164, out of which 25 is for unreserved or open category against which 75 candidates are selected for physical verification, 66 is for Khasi-Jaintia category against which 217 candidates are selected, 65 is for Garo category against which 215 candidates are selected and the same is for OST/SC and Sports category.
Instead of selecting only the total number of candidates against the total vacancies, the Board went on to add senseless number of candidates. This is done with a malicious intention of favouring certain candidates under the pretext of ambiguity of a large number of selected candidates.
There is no reason of selecting more than the required candidates against the total vacancies as the method of selection is purely based on the written examination and it is to be based on merit, and thus the only reason for doing so is to give room to select undeserved candidates. This is also the same for ANM.
After the released of the answer key of staff nurse examination many candidates have complaint that after self-comparison with the answer key, they should have achieved a higher mark and should have been selected but that is not the case. And there are also rumours that the OMR sheets of candidates have been tampered with.
Based on the advertisement, it can be seen that any candidate from any other state can apply for these posts. This will devoid the opportunities to the indigenous tribal of the State. State jobs should be limited only to the domiciles of Meghalaya and should not allow any other person coming from outside the State.
Others states follow this pattern and whereas Meghalaya is providing opportunities to others. Sixthly, the MMSRB has been established in the year 2023 but till date has no rules for conducting examination. The Union fails to understand as to how can the Board function without any examination rules or recruitment rules.
Without any proper guidelines, the recruitment process will not be transparent and fair and the Board will have arbitrary powers to manipulate the examination and the recruitment process to its favour.
Thus, the Union urge that the said result published on the 28th of September, 2024 for staff nurse and ANM must be cancelled and departmental proceedings must be initiated against the person(s) involved in scrutiny and publication of the results and also must be immediately suspended.
The Union also humbly request you that all the marks of the candidates must be published and any candidates who feels that they secured less than what they are supposed to get can view their OMR sheets and also a copy of it must be supplied to them.
This has become an important step in the instant case to uphold the trust and faith of the candidates in the recruitment process. Also, the Union demands that employment opportunities by the State Government must only be confined to the domiciles of Meghalaya.
The Union would also like to state that in view of almost 13 questions being out of syllabus, the candidates feel that they have been cheated and are urging that either full marks should be given in these questions to everyone or marks for these questions must not be counted because the Board has deviated from syllabus mentioned in the advertisement.
There is also a growing chant for re-examination. The Union humbly request that a consensus has to be taken from the nurses’ representatives and the candidates in this regard to come to a common accord for the betterment of all the candidates. Your positive response would be highly appreciated by the Union.
