Rajasthan: NEET aspirants flout Covid norms

JAIPUR: Students who appeared for the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET) exam here have complained that very few Covid norms were followed.
Aliya Naqvi, a NEET aspirant who appeared in Maheshwari Public School on Sirsi Road, said students at the centre did not follow social distancing norms. “It was utter chaos at the centre as students were jostling for space. It was very scary that examiners at the centre were not making any efforts to ask students to maintain distance,” Naqvi, a resident of Kidwai Nagar in Jaipur, said.
Similar was the situation in other centres too.
Rohit Sharma, an aspirant who appeared at Gyan Ashram School, Rajat Path at Mansarovar, said during entry and exit, it was not possible to maintain social distance at the centre. “One cannot entirely blame the school as I have seen that students were in hurry to step out of the centre after the exam was over. They were not even listening to a repeated requests by the invigilators,” said Sharma. Over 1 lakh students had appeared in the NEET exam in the state held at five centres—Ajmer, Jaipur, Kota, Udaipur and Jodhpur.
Ashish Arora, a NEET exam expert, said the overall paper was easier than last three years. “About 92% of paper was conceptual and based on NCERT. It means that students who covered NCERT will have an upper edge over others. Compared to the last 4 years, biology paper was the toughest,” said Arora.
He added that this year the cut-off may increase up to 595 marks for government colleges. Last year, it was 582 whereas in 2018, the cut-off was 535.
NEET coordinator office in Jaipur said attendance in the exam was close to 80%. They are yet to update the attendance of all centres but the primary information is very encouraging.