West Bengal: NEET centres pass NTA scrutiny, ready for ‘Covid test’ on D-Day

KOLKATA: As many as 66 centres for NEET in Kolkata and 16 in Howrah have readied themselves for Sunday’s examination. In the past one week, each centre went through multiple rounds of sanitization, furniture arrangements, staff drills and virtual meetings with the National Testing Agency and city coordinators. On Saturday, most centres sanitized their premises four times and the last round was inspected by NTA teams.
Hundreds of students from the districts and even other states like Odisha are putting up at guesthouses in Park Circus, Sealdah and Moulali. While some arrived as early as on Friday morning, others — accompanied by parents — reached on Saturday. In the absence of trains, most of them had to pay through the nose to travel.

Biswaraj Mondal and Danish Khan from Malda had taken a bus around 8pm on Thursday. They shelled out Rs 800 for one-way tickets. “The bus driver said that he was taking a risk on lockdown day and, hence, we had to pay that amount. We reached Esplanade around 9.30am on Friday. We pleaded with the cops to help us reach Park Circus. But they said that the only option was to walk. I could not sleep in the bus. The long walk left me exhausted. At a time when I should have been studying, I was trying to recover from fatigue,” Mondal said.
At Hotel Raj and Akash Hotel in Sealdah, there were at least 12 families from Odisha who had booked a car from the Digha border. “The vehicle will remain with us. Hiring a car is costly, but we cannot risk travelling by public transport,” said Priyadarsini Panda, a candidate.
Organisations like the Indian Medical Association, West Bengal, West Bengal Haj Committee and NGOs like Bengali Academia for Social Empowerment (BASE) are offering accommodation for students from far-flung areas. “We decided to offer accommodation to NEET-UG candidates from the districts so that they can reach their examination centres on time,” said Santanu Sen, secretary IMA, West Bengal.
Late on Saturday, the centres were cordoned off. Depending on the locale and the number of candidates, 100-400 metres were cordoned off for parents to stay beyond a point to prevent crowding.