Non-veg missing from govt institute menu
GUWAHATI: The alleged ban is an attack on the food habits of the indigenous people of the northeast and has not been taken in good taste.
ARDENT MILLER BASAIAWMOIT, HSPSP president
The opposition Hill State People’s Democratic Party (HSPDP) in Meghalaya has raised objection to the alleged ban on the sale of non-vegetarian food items at the Shillongbased North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS).
“We were getting complaints that such a rule had been imposed and it was causing problems for patients and other people visiting the institute. On inquiry we found the allegations to be true,” HSPDP’s president, Ardent Miller Basaiawmoit, who is also a member of Meghalaya assembly, told HT.
Basaiawmoit has written to Union health minister JP Nadda against the ‘ban’ imposed by the biggest postgraduate medical institute in northeast India.
“This (the alleged ban) is an attack on the food habits of the indigenous people of northeast and has not been taken in good taste,” Miller wrote to Nadda seeking restoration of the sale of non-vegetarian food at the government-run medical institute.
Copies of the letter sent to the Meghalaya chief minister, health minister, and director of NEIGRIHMS had an attached page that was signed by the institute’s chief on May 26 this year, where several food items and prices are listed.
Authorities at the 30-year-old institute, the first in the region built by the Union health ministry on lines of New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) in Chandigarh, refuted the allegations. “There is no truth in the charges. No such circular banning sale of non-vegetarian food has been issued. The same items, which were on the menu for years, are still being sold at NEIGRIHMS,” Dr DM Thappa, director of the institute, told HT.
Issuing a press release on Thursday, NEIGRIHMS stated non-vegetarian food items are served in both canteens in the institute and admitted patients are also served such items based on the advice of doctors.
The authorities admitted they had asked the operators of the coffee shop in the out-patients department (OPD) area, where pre-packed non-vegetarian foods are sold, to keep fresh items for patients and visitors.