Around 110 candidates from across the State have registered for the second round of National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) that is scheduled to be held on May 20. All these are students from North Karnataka who had missed their chance in the first round on May 5 because of a seven-hour train delay.
The second round is being conducted after the Ministry of Human Resource Development decided to give the students another chance. The last date to register for the exam was May 10, though some leniency in deadline is expected to be given for students who were unable to produce a copy of the ticket of the train that arrived late. They were expected to submit their application along with copies of their admission tickets and train tickets.
“About 30 people have registered without giving any specific reason and will not be allowed to write the examination. We cannot even get back to them as many of them have sent applications from the email IDs of cybercafes,” a source said.
Four help centres had received around 900 calls from students who wanted to attempt the exam on May 20. “Some of the calls they received queries from outside Karnataka. Some students from the State even asked us if they could re-attempt the exam and improve their performance. But we have told the coordinators that they can allow students to write the examination only if their train was late,” a source said.
On May 5, the 16591 Hampi Express, which runs from Hampi to Bengaluru via Mysuru, reached Yeshwantpur railway station only at 2.36 p.m. The test had commenced at 2 p.m.
Following this, Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy took up the issue and directed officials to pursue the matter with the MHRD, which eventually decided to give the students another chance. South Western Railway, which faced flak for the train delay, too wrote to the MHRD requesting the authorities to give the students another chance.