‘Let JEE, NEET be held in September’

MUMBAI: A week after undergraduate (UG) medical and engineering students from 11 states filed a petition in the Supreme Court (SC) seeking the postponement of the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and National Eligibilitycum-entrance Test (NEET), students from Maharashtra and Gujarat on Thursday filed an intervention in the matter.

The intervention requests the court to allow the two nationallevel entrance exams for professional courses to be held as per schedule in September. It further states that any further delay in conducting these entrance tests will cause more anxiety among students who have been studying and preparing for the exams from the past two years at least.

Advocate Shrirang Choudhary, the briefing lawyer for students from the state who have intervened in the matter at SC, said, “The state of Maharashtra has already postponed the MPSC (Maharashtra Public Service Commission) exams which had been scheduled for September 13 to avoid it clashing with NEET. Postponing the NEET exam would be detrimental to the interest of lakhs of students who are placed in a similar situation with that of the present applicants. Lakhs of students have invested more than two years of their efforts and time in preparation. The applicants have faced uncertainty for more than three months before the NEET exam schedule was announced. Any more postponement of the exam would result in further agony.”

Around 16 lakh students have registered for NEET-UG this year, while close to 9.3 lakh students had registered for Jeemains (Paper I) that was conducted in January. An equal number of students were expected to appear for the second phase of the exam, which is scheduled for April-may each year. This year however, owing to the Covid-19 outbreak, the National Testing Agency (NTA) kept postponing the exam dates. In NTA’S latest circular, both the exams have been scheduled to take place for September.

“Medical admissions are time bound, and so it makes no sense to further delay NEET, as it will delay the admission process too. Leaving an entire batch of medical seats vacant will be unfair because next year, the intake capacity of the institutes will remain the same but the applicants will double in number,” said activist Sudha Shenoy, who is the parent of an aspirant, adding that students should be given the option to appear for the exam in September or give the entrance exam the next academic year.