"I Lost A Year", A NEET Aspirant Who Missed His Exam By 10 Mins
A young boy from Darbhanga, Bihar was not allowed to enter inside his examination centre in Saltlake, Kolkata, as he was late by 10 minutes.
Santosh Kumar Yadav, who travelled for more than 24 hours all the way from Darbhanga. He had to change two buses to civer 700 kilometre distance to reach Saltlake, Kolkata, for his National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET). Unfortunately, he was late by 10 minutes and was not allowed to sit inside the examination centre.
“I pleaded the authorities but they said I was late. The examination started at 2 pm. I reached the centre around 1.40 pm. The last deadline for entering the centre was 1.30 pm. I boarded a bus at Darbhanga at 8 am on Saturday to reach Muzaffarpur. From there I took a bus to Patna but there was a traffic jam on the route and I got delayed by almost six hours.”
“I took another bus from Patna at 9 pm. The bus dropped me near Sealdah station (in Kolkata) at 1.06 pm. A taxi brought me to the examination centre,” Yadav told a television channel.
“I lost a year,” he added.
With 94,372 coronavirus cases in India currently, the graph is increasing rapidly and there is no improvement as of now. With such condition many students were against the idea of organising NEET exam. With lockdown in some states and fear of corona a lot of students were unable to give their NEET exam.
While the Kolkata government said, “We knew that students would face trouble. The metro railway can carry them within Kolkata but what about those from other districts? Chief minister Mamata Banerjee cancelled the state-wide lockdown on Saturday only to help students travel. But they still faced problems because of the pandemic situation,” said state education minister and Trinamool Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee.
Rajdeep Tripathi another NEET aspirant from Satna, Madhya Pradesh, was not able to find any transport to reach his NEET exam centre.
“I even registered for MP government’s free transport service. They called me and said that I had to come to my block (from my village) at 4:30 am on 13 September. It was 35 km away from my village but I had no transport to get there. I wasn’t able to go.” Reported The Quint
“Everything was ready, my admit card, preparation, but the circumstances were as such. The government should have made sure every student gets an equal opportunity and equal access for giving the exam.” He added.
Students are urging the government to hear their voices because there are many students like them whose dream got shattered and they lost a year of patience, hard work and time.
"We want our voices to be heard, for students like us to be given a second chance."