Shillong, Jan 19 (FN Agency) The Meghalaya Cabinet has approved to raise the upper age limit for taking up government services from the age of 27 to 32, besides an increase of another five years for Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates up to 37 years, which, however, would not include the home (police) department, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma announced on Wednesday. “Any recruitment done by home police will be exempted from this decision. Other departments which will be exempted from this decision include forest guards, home guards and civil defense and certain posts in the prisons department,” he told journalists after a cabinet meeting. “The point is that uniform posts that are there which require a slightly more physical work will have same age limit as before and there will be no change in that,” the Chief Minister explained. “But for all other government services, the age relaxation has been increased from 27 to 32 and for ST another five years will be added and that is 37,” Sangma said. The cabinet also passed the adoption of the NH Act for Land Acquisition and Construction of National Highways.
“There is a land acquisition act and now the NH Act will be applicable only for national highway projects and for other acquisition, the normal land acquisition act will be applicable. This is being done throughout the country by most state governments and the central government has urged government of Meghalaya to approve this,” he said. “With the approval of the land acquisition to be done under the NH Act, we will be reducing the time for land acquisition from three years down to one-third may be maximum of one year,” he said, adding that it would be a huge advantage and obviously will ensure the projects are completed much faster. Further, the cabinet has also approved the policy for Village Health Councils (VHCs) of Meghalaya. He said the objective of the VHCs is to focus on the health sector at the village level. “The VHCs will be created along with coordination and cooperation of the headmen, rangbah shnongs, nokmas and the VHCs will focus mainly on important health issues that are there in the village level and it will be a first point contact at least for basic health services and other health related issues,” he said.