Correspondent
Shillong: The Meghalaya Cabinet has approved the Meghalaya Health Service Academic Rules, 2024, a crucial move toward the establishment of the Shillong Medical College, Health Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh confirmed on Wednesday. The new rules will facilitate the recruitment of faculty members, a critical step in ensuring the medical college meets its planned operational timeline.
Speaking to reporters, Health Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh explained that the establishment of service rules was essential to operationalize the medical college within the targeted time frame. “For the department of health to start making sure that we operationalize the medical college in the targeted time frame, we had to come up with service rules for the recruitment of faculty to run the medical college.” she said.
Lyngdoh expressed her satisfaction with the progress, stating, “We were happy to do that and now we go ahead and go to the next stage to prepare for the operationalization of the Shillong medical college at the earliest.”
The minister added that the department has already tendered the various construction components needed to establish the medical college. However, she noted some challenges regarding affiliation, stating, “We are already looking at affiliation; there’s a bit of a snag there, but we are going ahead, we are looking at option B and option C. We have said that we would prefer to see that it becomes operational in academic year 2025-2026.”
Asked about the status of the college, Lyngdoh clarified, “It has nothing to do with PA Sangma. This is our own State Medical College. State Medical College requires state service rules and like every other component of governance you cannot recruit, you cannot go ahead if you do not have a service rule in position.
She emphasized that the government is focused on the operationalization of the state-run Shillong Medical College, distinct from private institutions like USTM. “As far as USTM is concerned, we have already made public the details of the operationalization of private medical colleges.”
The minister also mentioned that the government anticipates few complications in launching the Shillong Medical College, citing the availability of in-house doctors who may qualify to join the faculty.
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