SHILLONG: North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU), once the pride of the region’s academia, is currently a ship without a captain. In a shocking revelation today, Education Minister Lahkmen Rymbui disclosed that Vice-Chancellor Professor P.S. Shukla has been absent from the campus for over 400 days, leaving the premier institution in a state of total “paralysis.”
The crisis reached a boiling point today as four major organizations—NEHUTA, NEHUSA, and the KSU NEHU Unit—met with the Minister to sound the alarm on a university teetering on the brink of collapse.
The situation has shifted from concerning to critical. With no Vice-Chancellor on-site and the recent resignation of the Pro-VC in Shillong, the university’s administrative machinery has ground to a halt.
“I myself don’t know who is running NEHU or how they could even run it,” Minister Rymbui admitted candidly. “There is no Registrar, and the decision-making process is paralyzed.”
The real victims of this administrative vanishing act are the students. The Minister highlighted several high-stakes consequences currently hitting the student body:
Result Deadlock: Without a Pro-VC or VC, exam results cannot be officially declared.
Financial Freeze: Payment of wages and sanctions for seminars are stuck in limbo.
Affiliation Crisis: Since most colleges in the state are affiliated with NEHU, the deadlock threatens the entire Meghalaya education system.
Scholarship Risks: Vital financial aid for students is now under threat due to the lack of authorized signatories.
While the NEHU statute dictates that a Pro-VC should take over in the VC’s absence, there is a major hitch: the current Pro-VC based in the Tura Campus is reportedly unwilling to move to Shillong to take the reins.
Minister Rymbui has directed officials to arrange an urgent meeting with the Tura Pro-VC to understand her stance and find an immediate “within-the-statute” solution.
The Meghalaya government isn’t sitting idly by. Chief Minister Conrad Sangma and Minister Rymbui have been aggressively lobbing the Union Ministry of Education for a permanent fix.
Letter to Delhi: A formal letter was dispatched to the Union Minister on December 15th.
Enquiry Report Pending: While the Ministry of Education has completed an enquiry into the mess, the contents of that report remain a mystery.
Urgent Intervention: “We cannot wait for day-to-day affairs to rot,” Rymbui stated. “It is incumbent upon me to see this resolved immediately.”
As the 400-day mark passes, the question remains: Where is the VC, and how much longer will the students of Meghalaya pay the price for this empty office?
