Meghalaya: New committee on roster system holds first meeting, asks political parties to forward suggestions

The reconstituted committee meeting on Reservation and Roster system chaired by Cabinet Minister and Government spokesperson Dr M Ampareen Lyngdoh was ‘fruitful’ but different opinions and suggestions were raised by different political parties. 

Attention by all political parties including the Voice of the People’s Party, Dr Lyngdoh said that different political parties have different opinions on the job reservation policy. However, the Minister has asked all parties to give official suggestions in black and white within 15 days on the matter. 

“We have requested all political parties to prepare their suggestions, omissions, cancellations, and deletions with substantial legal footing as we can always suggest whatever we want but we need to also make sure that we clear the legal scrutiny as the state political parties are mandated to review with the condition that there will be no obstruction or scrutiny that will result negatively for the government”, said Lyngdoh. 

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“Some have asked for status quo, some have said review on these, these points but all those presentations were made verbally. Now, we cannot make a verbal presentation in front of the committee and expect the committee to understand what you mean by that,” added Lyngdoh. 

However, the Committee has decided to voice all the suggestions from the meeting today to the Chief Minister of the State. 

On asked, if the committee has decided to constitute an “expert committee”, Lyngdoh informed that this is one of the suggestions to be sent to the government by the committee. 

“That will be one of the suggestions to be sent to the government by the committee,” asserted Lyngdoh. 

The expert committee will consist of legal background, constitutional background, economic background and somebody from the economic department that will look at data and evaluate of population, according to Lyngdoh. 

However, she indicated that not all parties favour constituting the “expert committee”. 

“There are political parties who agree and there are political parties who do not agree. So we will do our job by sending the minutes to the government that were discussed in the meeting,” she added.

The Chairperson informed that some (political parties) have asked for status quo, and some have said review on these, these points but all those presentations were made verbally. 

“…we cannot make a verbal presentation in front of the committee and expect the committee to understand what you mean by that.. second thing is you may come with a drop menu and say we want this, this done but you also have to give justification so that government if at all it considers any of your suggestions or for that matter that expert committee should it be an independent committee or should it not be an independent committee we don’t know but you at least have to justify and each political parties will be responded to individually and then we can have a common discussion again”, she further said. 

Meanwhile, the committee is proposing to meet again after three weeks.