Friday, May 4, 2018

SC stay a last-minute jolt for many NEET candidates
‘CBSE Must Be Blamed For Situation’

Sambath Kumar & Padmini Sivarajah TNN

Trichy/Madurai:

The Supreme Court stay on the Madras high court’s directive to CBSE to set up additional centres in the state for the sake of Tamil Nadu candidates – who were allotted centres outside for the national eligibilitycum-entrance test (NEET) – has plunged many an MBBS aspirant into a crisis.

Several such students who should have been preparing for the examination are now busy trying to figure out how to reach the allotted centres in time. Parents say their wards are now all stressed as many of them have to make last-minute arrangements to travel to their destinations by bus or car as trains are full.

V Chithra, mother of Mithun from Trichy, had booked train tickets and also a hotel room in Ernakulam where her son was to write. However, she cancelled the room following the high court order believing they may not have to travel to Kerala. Now the Supreme Court has stayed the order and all hotel rooms have been booked, she said. “Even half a mark matters in NEET which may cost my son his medical seat given the high level of competition. We fear his performance may get affected by travel fatigue and pressure,” she said.

“The CBSE is entirely to blame for this mix-up that has put students under immense pressure when most of them are carrying out last-minute preparations,” said J S Sukumar, MD of Uthavi Education Consultancy, a coaching centre in Madurai. “Students in Tamil Nadu are yet to be fully familiar with NEET as this is only the third year they will be writing the exam. They should have been given some consideration while allocating the examination centres.’’ “We ensured our son got the best NEET coaching and he too spent several sleepless nights to prepare for NEET. All the hard work put in for the past one year may go waste if anything goes wrong now,” said R Jayanthi, mother of an aspiring doctor in Trichy.

Even applicants from Ramanathapuram have been given a centre in Kochi.

Yoha Balaji of Global Public School said he had applied on February 18 and was allotted a centre in Ernakulam, but a few of his classmates who applied on February 20 and beyond got a college in Madurai as centre. “I looked for trains today, but found them to be fully booked,” said Ram Sithu, another student who had given his preference of centre as Madurai and Trichy.

Urging the government to bear the expense of candidates forced to go outside the state, PMK youth wing president anbumani Ramadoss said that of the 200-odd applicants, many were from government and government-aided schools. “Some candidates from Tirunelveli and Tuticorin have to travel all the way to Rajasthan to write NEET,” he claimed. TOI couldn’t speak to any such candidate to verify this.

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