The appointment of a regular director by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development after four years has not gone down well with the students of the North East Regional Institute of Science and Technology (NERIST) in Arunachal Pradesh.
The NERIST students have been on strike since February 27 demanding a regular director for the institute.
A notification from the HRD Ministry’s Higher Education department on Monday said that Hardeo Singh Yadav has been appointed the director on a contract of five years.
“We are very disappointed with the HRD Ministry for the appointment of Dr. Yadav. The Ministry clearly ignored our demand of appointing a director from outside Arunachal Pradesh,” NERIST Students’ Union president Banta Natung told The Hindu from Nirjuli, near Itanagar.
Dr. Yadav is the senior-most professor of chemistry department in NERIST, a deemed university. He had served as the institute’s director in-charge from April 19, 2016, to March 26 last year, before being removed by the HRD Ministry. The State’s Rajiv Gandhi University Vice-Chancellor Tamo Mibang has been in charge since then.
“We have not called off our agitation,” Mr. Natung said.
The 34-year-old NERIST has not had a director since October 2014, forcing some engineering students to drop out and leaving many research scholars in the lurch.
The All Arunachal Pradesh Students’ Union (AAPSU), expressing solidarity with some 1,800 agitating students, had on Monday called for a shutdown of higher education institutions across the State to exert pressure on the government. The AAPSU had also come down heavily on Kiren Rijiju, the local MP, for not doing enough for the institution that accommodates students from all eight north-eastern States as well as elsewhere in the country.
Mr. Rijiju had in October last year promised to push the HRD Ministry for appointment of a regular director within a month.
State Congress MP Ninong Ering had also written to HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar, urging him to “bring back education to life on the campus”.
