Defenceless against Covid, 70% skip NDA entrance exam in city

Nagpur: Fear of rising Covid-19 cases in Nagpur seems to have played a role in dismal attendance for National Defence Academy (NDA) entrance test held on Sunday. Around 30% students appeared for the exam in Nagpur, for which special trains and state buses were pressed into service.
Ravindra Khajanchi, resident district collector (RDC), said, “Usually, the attendance for this exam is around 70%. Though no one can accurately claim to know what caused the sharp drop in attendance, but the only logical conclusion seems to be fear of Covid-19.”
There were 69 centres in city, and Government Polytechnic Nagpur (GPN) seemed to have fared extremely well in the attendance column. MS Deshpande, coordinator for the exam at GPN, said, “We recorded 53% attendance this time. In a normal year, this figure would have been easily around 75%. The exam went off smoothly and students themselves cooperated and followed the standard operating procedure (SOPs).”
Academics feel the decision to conduct the exam now was an error. Headmasters Association president Madhusudhan Mude said, “Conducting this exam was like an invitation to the pandemic to grow exponentially. At the moment, India is going through a phase where cases are increasing. We have entered a crucial phase and I hope the government gives another chance to those who were unable to appear for the test.”
Though the Central Railway had made all possible arrangements by running 10 special trains from all directions in Maharashtra to Nagpur, the poor turnout of examinees came as a big disappointment for the transporter. As per official figures, only 496 students travelled by 10 special trains to Nagpur, which comes to 50 students per train of 18 coaches.
The officials were expecting many students to travel by trains but it did not happen. Nagpur and Mumbai were the only two centres for NDA exam. At least 30,000 students were expected across Central India in Nagpur and hence Central Railway had announced special trains from Pune, Mumbai, Kolhapur, Panvel, Akola, Ahmednagar, Ballarshah, Nashik, Jalgaon, and Amravati.
When asked, Central Railway chief public relations officer (CPRO) Shivaji Sutar said, “Our motive was social. The trains were announced on September 4 and exam was on September 6. It is possible that students may have made own travel arrangements well in advance.”
Nagpur railway officials admit, “Had these trains announced a week ago, almost all the trains would have run to its capacity. It made no sense as railway suffered crores of rupees towards operational loss by running these long-distance trains without passengers.”
They said on June 1, when 230 trains started, they operated with 60% occupancy and this was one of the reasons why no additional trains were started even as lockdown was relaxed in subsequent months. This is also an indication that people are still avoiding travel owing to Covid-19 spread.
Talking to TOI, MSRTC divisional controller Nilesh Belsare said, “MSRTC buses ferried at least 1,300 NDA examinees. We received 20 long-distance buses with examinees from Kolhapur, Sangli, Latur, Parbhani, Buldhana, Pune, and Aurangabad. These students had planned trip well in advance. Had railway announced an early schedule, these candidates would have shifted to railways.”
“We too are disappointed with the thin attendance. Apart from our regular schedules of 150 buses, we had arranged 120 additional buses for examinees but only 25 were utilized for cities like Amravati, Yavatmal, Wardha, Hinganghat, Pune and Aurangabad. We found that 70% of the students had arrived here by private vehicles. Many from nearby tehsils like Katol, Umred, Saoner etc arrived on two-wheelers,” said Belsare.
Shubham Singh, one of the aspirants from Pune, said, “Had the railways not announced special train, I was planning to cancel the trip. Private buses charged heavily. However, there were others who came by private vehicles.”