Bhubaneswar (Kalinga Voice) : In view of the COVID19 crisis Chief Minister of Odisha Naveen Pattanayak has urged Union Education Minister Dr. R P Nishank to postpone NEET, JEE (Main) Entrance Test. CM said visiting test centers will not be safe for students while transportation gets disrupted due to frequent lockdown/shutdown
In a letter to Union Education Minister Dr. Nishank, the Chief Minister of Odisha wrote that the National Testing Agency(NTA) has scheduled the NEET-JEE examinations to be held on September 1-6 and 13th. About 50,000 students from Odisha will take the exam for NEET and about 40,000 for JEE However, the National Testing Agency has announced test centers in only six cities in the state, However, in the current COVID pandemic situation, it is not safe for so many children to come physically to the test center and appear the test. On the other hand, due to the sudden increase in corona cases in different districts of the state, the shutdown lockdown continues at the local level. Transportation at the local level are also often disrupted.
CM further wrote in his letter ” “Odisha is a tribal-dominated state. Many of the students live in remote areas that are geographically inaccessible and remote . They are very far from test centers fixed by NTA. It will be difficult for children living in the area to come from far and wide to reach the test center. Therefore, for the above reasons, the Chief Minister has requested to postpone the NEET-JEE examination, which is scheduled to be held in the first half of September in view of the safety of the students. The Chief Minister has requested the Union Minister of Education to set up test centers in 30 districts for the convenience of children before the announcement of the NEET-JEE exam on the next date.
