Over hundreds of students from North Karnataka districts could not appear for the NEET exam owing to a 7-hour delay of the Hampi Express. Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy also said that a last-minute change in the exam centres and lack of proper communication created chaos among students. The candidates who missed their NEET exams were allocated centres in Bengaluru.
National Testing Agency or NTA, which is the national level organisation mandated to organise academic and competitive entrance-cum-eligibility exams, has organised its first NEET test on May 5 (Sunday) in various examination centres across India.
The CM also requested to the PM Narendra Modi, Railways Minister Piyush Goyal, and HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar to intervene and make sure that students who have missed the chance to write NEET exam should get another chance to appear for the NEET 2019 Exam.
“The train was supposed to reach Ballari in Hospet at 10.45 am but it was not in sight. It reached Hospet at 1.30 pm,” said Vinod who is a student from Hospet.
A Railway public relation officer told PTI, “For the past one week the Hampi Express is running on a diverted route.
There are no timings for the diverted route. Earlier the scheduled time of reaching Bengaluru was 7 am.”
“Is it humanly possible to cross the Bengaluru traffic and reach the exam centre 50 km away?” N Vijay Kumar, a parent asked.
As per the reports, around 500 students could not appear for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test or NEET, which is being conducted as an entrance test for admission to medical and dental colleges all across the country.
Meanwhile, the affected candidates have taken their complaints to social media platforms and even demanded re-examination for them. The students also tagged Union HRD minister and Railway minister in their respective posts.
Medical colleges (barring AIIMSs and JIPMER) will accept NEET marks for the counselling in both all India and state level medical admissions. It was only recently that the Medical Council of Indian (MCI) made NEET as compulsory requirement in order to take admissions in foreign medical colleges.