GUWAHATI: A Meghalaya MLA is outraged that non-vegetarian food items have been removed from the platter at the North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health & Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS) in Shillong.
Ardent Miller Basaiwmolt, chief of opposition Hill State People’s Democratic Party (HSPDP), has petitioned Union Health Minister J P Nadda with a copy to the state’s Chief Minister Mukul Sangma, to direct NEIRGHIMS authorities to restore sale of non-vegetarian food in the canteens of the biggest post-graduate medical institute of the Northeast.
“I bring to your kind attention that non-vegetarian food at NEIRGHIMS has been stopped since the joining of the new director Dr D M Thappa. The public had approached us and given vent to their anger for the inconveniences they are facing at NEIRGHIMS. We had sent our investigative team and it found some truth in it… This is an ill-founded action on the part of NEIRGHIMS director and an attack on the food habits of the indigenous people of the Northeast. This has not been taken in good taste,” Basaiwmolt wrote to Nadda.
The NEIRGHIMS director has rubbished the charge.
“This is totally wrong. No menu has been changed after I joined the institute in April this year. The same menu is being followed,” Thappa said.
“A house committee decides on menu components. In the hostels where both boys and girls reside, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian food is being served. It is a malicious complaint to defame the director and malign his image on the pretext of somebody who may have wanted to do so.”
A few months ago, some BJP leaders in the state had resigned along with hundreds of party workers protesting the Centre’s new cattle slaughter rules. With Assembly elections in some states of the Northeast due next year, the BJP had to later issue a clarification saying that there would be no ban on beef in the region.