SHILLONG, July 25 � Congress president Sonia Gandhi has intervened to resolve the issue of inadequate faculty at the premier North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS).
Gandhi, in a letter to Meghalaya Congress president Friday Lyngdoh, said she has got the matter pertaining to the affairs at NEIGRIHMS examined and with intervention of Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, the matter was being resolved satisfactorily, a Congress spokesman said in a statement here today.
�Directions have been given for expeditious completion of the selection process of the faculty position across 23 departments in the institution,� it said.
Earlier this month, MBBS students went on a strike for over a week protesting lack of teaching staff.
Designed on the lines of AIIMS, New Delhi, and PGIMER, Chandigarh, NEIGRIHMS has been the first and the only postgraduate medical institute in the NE region and the third in the country established by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
It has been functioning since 2002, but various problems, including shortage of faculty has been paralysing the institute. Over Rs 550 crore has been spent in setting up the institute so far.
The first batch for the MBBS course was taken in 2009. As per Medical Council of India (MCI) guidelines, NEIGRIHMS ought to have at least 140 teachers in the different departments for the MBBS course but there are only 32 at present. �PTI
