Shillong, Oct 3: The State government has put on hold the dates for acceptance of the selected candidates to pursue MBBS course in various medical colleges across the country under the State quota.
However, the government said that the acceptance of nominations for other courses and for MBBS in Shillong Medical College will remain as scheduled.
Objections to the list of selected candidates have been raised by the Khasi Students Union (KSU) and Jaintia Students Union (JSU) when two non-tribal names were selected for MBBS seats when other Khasi students have higher NEET marks.
One Diya Ghosh, with a NEET score of 472 and Tanushka Chakravarty, with a score of 442, featured in the list of students to study MBBS outside the state under the Unreserved Category, when the category is open to all residents of Meghalaya, including Khasi, Jaintia, and Garo communities.
The KSU said that the open category is unreserved and not specifically reserved for non-tribals. “Anyone can be selected through the open category,” General Secretary Donald V Thabah said.
He alleged that the government’s standard operating procedure is only to accommodate all non Khasi-Jaintia in the 15 per cent of the open category. “This is wrong and it is against the spirit of the open category,” the KSU general secretary said.
On the same issue, the JSU attended a meeting chaired by the Director of Health Services today.
The JSU said as per Meghalaya’s state quota rules for MBBS admissions (governed by the Directorate of Health Services and aligned with NMCs Undergraduate Medical Education Board guidelines), unreserved (Open) seats are open to all eligible candidates based purely on NEET merit. Excluding a higher-scoring reserved candidate perpetuates inequality and underutilizes the reservation quota, which could instead accommodate additional lower-merit reserved candidates.
Pointing out that compartmentalisation of categories in horizontal reservations should not bar merit-based migration, the JSU said research into MBBS counselling process confirms no explicit bar on such migration; instead, it follows the all-India model where merit trumps category silos for unreserved seats.
It pointed out that at least eight Khasi and Jaintia candidates surpass multiple Open Category, yet remain unconsidered for migration, which affects seats in prestigious institutions like Lady Hardinge Medical College and Government Medical College Chandigarh.
The JSU demanded shifting the Khasi & Jaintia students, who qualified the merit threshold for Open Category immediately.
Meanwhile, on Friday, the KSU called out against the government for violating the reservation policy while selecting candidates to study Bachelor of Physiotherapy, Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery, Bachelor of Homeopathy and Surgery.
Thabah said that there are discrepancies in selection of candidates by the Health and Family Welfare department.
On the Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery, the KSU said that, two non-tribal candidates in the waiting list, of the open category, in serial number 2 and 3, should not have been included for the course, but two tribal students who have been selected in the Khasi-Jaintia category (Nos 1 and 2) should have been included in the waiting list of the open category.
“As precedence if these two students are in the waiting list of the open category, they should also be in the selected list of the Khasi-Jaintia category,” Thabah said.
The KSU leader said that this objection does not mean the union is opposing other students but this selection of candidates is part of the process to allocate seats.
He also said that the State Government should do away with the Scheduled Caste Category from Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery, Bachelor of Homeopathy and Surgery, since in the reservation policy this category does not exist.
