The result of medical entrance exam NEET will be announced on October 16, Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ''Nishank'' said Monday.

Students who could not appear for the exam due to COVID-19 infection or because of containment zone restrictions will get a chance to appear for it on October 14.

The Supreme Court Monday allowed National Testing Agency to conduct second round of the NEET (UG) for the COVID-19 affected students and those in containment zones on October 14.

A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde passed the order after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta sought the top court''s nod in the issue citing special circumstances due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“In view of the circumstances which have necessitated postponement of the examination in the past and in view of the prevailing circumstances, we consider it appropriate to grant permission to the National Testing Agency to conduct a second part of the NEET (UG) 2019 for the COVID affected students and for those in containment zones on October 14, 2020,” the bench said.

"DG_NTA will be declaring the results of #NEETUG 2020 on 16th October 2020. Exact timing of the results will be intimated later. I wish all the best to the candidates," Nishank tweeted.

The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test was conducted on September 13 amid strict precautions in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.

From this year, the admissions to MBBS course in the 13 All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, Puducherry, will also be made through NEET following the amendment in National Medical Commission Act, 2019, passed by Parliament last year.

The test was offered in 11 languages - English, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Odia, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu this year. Based on the initial report, more than 77 per cent aspirants took the test in English, around 12 per cent in Hindi and 11 per cent in other languages.

The exam was earlier postponed twice due to the pandemic and the government decided to go ahead with it, despite opposition by a section, to mitigate any further academic loss.

The National Testing Agency had set in place strict standard operating procedures in view of the pandemic, including measures like reducing the number of candidates per room from the earlier 24 to 12.

The NTA had also increased the number of centres from 2,546 in 2019 to 3,862 this year to ensure crowd management and staggered entry and exit protocols. Unlike the engineering entrance (JEE), NEET-UG, the medical admission test, is a pen and paper exam and held once a year.

Accordingly, the NTA had changed centres for a few candidates this week in compliance with social distancing norms and COVID restrictions. In many places NTA also arranged buses and private vehicles to transfer candidates who arrived at the centres assigned to them earlier instead of the changed one.

While all the candidates were asked to go to the exam centres with masks and sanitisers, once they entered the centre, they were asked to use the three-ply masks provided by the examination authority.

The NEET-UG was originally scheduled for May 3, but was pushed to July 26 and then scheduled for September 13.