In a statement, the Ministry’s National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts these exams, said over 6.4 lakh candidates have downloaded their admit cards for the engineering entrance exam, JEE-Main. It said 6,49,223 candidates have downloaded their admit cards, so far, against a total of 8,58,273. “The NTA is happy to share with the JEE (Main) 2020 candidates that it has been able to offer the first choice of preference of centre cities to 99.07 per cent of the candidates,” it said.

The statement said that “142 candidates have, subsequently requested for a change in their allotted centre city due to various reasons, and the NTA is considering these requests positively.” It said as far as, “NEET (UG)-2020 is concerned, again for the first time, candidates of this examination were given opportunity five times to change their choice of centre city”. A total of 95,000 candidates availed the same and they have been accommodated against their revised choices, the NTA said in the statement. There have been demands from several students and parents to further postpone the tests in view of increasing coronavirus cases. Earlier, BJP MP Subramanian Swamy had sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention to direct the Education Ministry to postpone the exams and the SC had on Monday dismissed a plea seeking postponement of the examinations.