The first day of the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Mains on Tuesday went off smoothly with the National Testing Agency (NTA) conducting the entrance test under strict Covid-19 safety precautions across all examination centres in the country.
“JEE exam was conducted smoothly,” higher education secretary Amit Khare said. He added, “I would like to thank all the state governments and officials of the NTA for the smooth conduct of the examination.”
The testing agency conducted the entrance test at more than 500 examination centres across the country. “Covid-19 safety guidelines were strictly followed across all examination centres,” an official of the NTA said.
While thermal screening of each of the students was done at the entrance of the examination centres, verification of the students’ admit cards was done through barcode readers, instead of doing so manually. Hand sanitisers were made available at the entrance of the examination centres and inside the exam hall as well.
“Students were given fresh 3-ply masks to wear inside the examination halls after they entered the examination centre,” the official said.
The entrance test was conducted in two shifts. "Before and after the start of each shift, all seats were thoroughly sanitized. The work stations and keyboards were disinfected," he added.
Several State governments including in Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh arranged free transportation facility for the students. Odisha government had on Friday announced free transportation and accommodation facility for both the JEE and NEET aspirants.
Western Railway announced that it will run 46 additional special suburban services in Mumbai from September 1 to September 6, 2020 for the convenience of JEE candidates.
“We have not received any complaints so far about any student facing difficulty in reaching examination centres,” the NTA official said.
In West Bengal, however, many students reportedly faced difficulty in reaching their examination centres.
According to PTI, West Bengal government had asked all the state transport utilities to commence bus services from 5 am in view of the exam. But several candidates in North 24 Parganas, Berhampur, Malda and Siliguri claimed that they had to wait for hours, braving downpour, to get a bus to reach their examination centres.
Several Students’ Unions, backed by the Opposition parties, were demanding for postponement of the entrance exams raising concerns of students’ safety citing growing number of Covid-19 cases in the country.
Six Opposition-ruled States including West Bengal filed a petition before the Supreme Court last week seeking review of its order which had favoured the conduct of JEE-Main and National eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) earlier this month. But, the Union government remained firm on its decision to conduct the exams.
As the NTA went ahead with the JEE-Main exams, the members of the Congress’ National Students Union of India (NSUI), whose president Neeraj Kundan had sat on a relay hunger strike along with others pressing for postponement of the JEE-Main and NEET last week, were seen distributing face masks and sanitisers to JEE aspirants in Punjab and Karnataka.
