Kolkata beats odds, clocks 85% in NEET

Kolkata beats odds, clocks 85% in NEET

Anxiety At Exam Venues As Tense Students Wait For Entry

Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey & Tamaghna Banerjee TNN

Kolkata:14.09.2020

In a sharp contrast to JEE (Main), over 85% candidates appeared for their NEET (UG) 2020 examinations in Kolkata on Sunday. A little over 47% candidates had taken their JEE (Main) examinations. The high attendance, however, was overshadowed by anxiety, first to reach the exam centres on time and then to be admitted inside the halls.

Asked to report three hours before the start of exam and allowed entry over multiple time slots, several students, who were standing in queue in the heat, complained of feeling sick. Many even reported high temperatures when screened under a thermal gun at the time of entry. While at some centres guards allowed minor sways in the recorded temperature, at Haryana Vidyamandir in Salt Lake, where 400-plus examinees were writing the exam, none with temperature above 98.4 degrees Fahrenheit were allowed entry. The students were asked to stand under a shade — under a tree or some other canopy for sometime — and were checked again. They were allowed only after the temperature receded below 98.4.

“Just as I was about to enter the venue, the guard asked me to stand on a side saying I had high temperature. I was made to stand under a shade for 10 minutes following which I was checked again but the temperature was still high. After the third attempt, the temperature finally receded and they allowed me to enter,” said Amrita Chakraborty, an examinee from Kanchrapara.

At Adamas University, five candidates came with court orders to allow them to sit in separate rooms for the exam and not in the exam hall with other candidates. “We honoured the court order and made separate arrangements for them,” said Ujjwal Choudhury, pro vice chancellor. Out of the 380-odd candidates, 350 wrote the test at this centre.

Though isolation units for those with temperatures higher than 99.4 degrees were kept, these did not have to be used till last reports came in. At some bigger centres like DPS Ruby Park, 717 candidates wrote the test out of 840. At Birla High School for Boys, 350 wrote the exam out of 420.

NTA teams and observers were present at each centre. An underlayer Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheet was given so that the second copy can be kept with NTA. The original copy will go for marking. Right from 11am, when the candidates started walking in, till the last candidate left the hall, the entire duration was videographed and submitted to NTA.

The lifting of the Saturday lockdown and efforts by transport department, along with Metro services, helped candidates reach centers on time. On their way back, though, students and parents complained of app-cab surge price. Demand peaked at the end of exam, causing a demand-supply gap, said Indranil Banerjee, secretary of Online Cab Operators’ Guild.