By NE NOW NEWS
Guwahati: An Oil India Limited (OIL) fire engineer has contested the “first from Assam” tag associated with National Fire Service College (NFSC) graduate Shivangi Sonowal, saying she earned a Fire Engineering degree in 2023.
The issue surfaced after Assam Cabinet Minister Ashok Singhal and the official social media handles of Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma congratulated Sonowal on graduating from NFSC, Nagpur, and described her as the first person from Assam to achieve the feat. The description was subsequently carried by several media outlets and widely circulated on social media.
However, Padma Mushahary, a resident of Bengtol Gate village in Chirang district and currently serving as a Senior Fire Engineer with OIL at Duliajan, said she completed her Bachelor of Technology in Fire Engineering from the Institute of Engineering and Science (IES), Indore, in 2023.
Mushahary maintained that while Sonowal may be the first person from Assam to graduate from NFSC, portraying her as the first Assamese Fire Engineering graduate was inaccurate.
The daughter of Thaneswar Basumatary and Doli Mushahary, she is currently posted at OIL’s Duliajan operations and said her qualification predates Sonowal’s graduation by three years.
Sonowal, who hails from Dangari village in Tinsukia district, recently graduated with a BTech in Fire Engineering from NFSC, a premier institution under the Ministry of Home Affairs specialising in fire safety, disaster management and emergency response.
Admission to the programme is through a competitive selection process requiring candidates to qualify through JEE Main and meet prescribed physical fitness standards. Sonowal secured admission in 2022 and completed the four-year course before receiving her degree at the institution’s convocation ceremony on May 29.
She has also reportedly secured a job offer through the college’s campus recruitment programme.
The differing claims have triggered a debate over the accuracy of the “first from Assam” description and whether the distinction pertains specifically to graduation from NFSC or to obtaining a Fire Engineering degree more broadly.