The Odisha government has sought the postponement of the Joint Entrance Examination (Main) and the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET) in view of the COVID-19 pandemic and opening of centres in all 30 districts when examinations are rescheduled.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday shot off a letter Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank in this regard.

Mr. Patnaik said:

“National Testing Agency (NTA) has scheduled to conduct the JEE (Main) and NEET, 2020 test for admissions into the technical and medical courses on September 1 to 6 and 13 respectively.

“More than 50,000 students from Odisha are appearing in NEET and around 40,000 in JEE (Main) this year. The NTA has, however, opened examination centres in seven towns only.

“In view of the prevailing COVID pandemic situation in the country, it would be highly unsafe and perilous for the students to visit the test centres physically to appear in these tests”.

“Besides, as frequent lockdown and shutdown are being enforced by the concerned district administrations due to sudden escalation of the COVID positive cases locally, the local transportation too gets disrupted”.

Inaccessible areas

Odisha had vast tribal pockets having geographically inaccessible areas, far away from the urban centres of the State, Mr Patnaik pointed out. Students of these areas might be deprived of appearing in these tests, as they would have to travel long distances to come to the examination centres, he said.

“It is requested that the ensuing JEE (Main) and NEET examination scheduled to be held in first fortnight of September, 2020 may be postponed to a later date to ensure the safety and security of the students,” he stated.

Mr. Patnaik urged that the NTA should be directed to open centres in all the 30 districts of the State so that students have to travel maximum 2-3 hours to reach the test centres and go back home the same day and thus ensure maximum participation of students in these tests if scheduled on a later date.