On a day when ministers of 6 state governments including Maharashtra, Bengal, Punjab and Rajasthan filed a review petition stating that SC did not consider safety of students writing the JEE and NEET exams, the Naveen Patnaik government announced that it would provide free transport and accommodation to the 37000 students from the state who would write the exam.
Chief secretary Asit Tripathy said if any of the 37,000 candidates of the state who would write the exams need transportation and accommodation facilities, the state government will provide it. “The government will provide buses to ferry candidates from their home town to the designated entrance venues. But the students have to apply for the government facilities by August 31,” said Tripathy.
The government said the students have to inform the nearby nodal centres and arrangements would be made for their free stay in polytechnic institutes, engineering colleges & ITIs. In each district, one ITI has been made as nodal centre for transportation and accommodation and student have to contact the nodal ITIs to register themselves if they need help for transportation/accommodation.
While the JEE-Mains exams will be held between September 1 and 6 the NEET is scheduled on September 13. In Odisha, JEE Mains would be held in 26 centres across 7 cities.
The government will also ease restrictions for the students and their parents for movement during the exam period.
Odisha government’s decision came a day after Patnaik spoke to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding that exams be postponed. On Thursday Patnaik spoke to Modi advocating the postponement citing the alarming Covid situation as well as floods in the state that has gripped many districts.
On August 25, Patnaik had written a letter to the union education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank suggesting that exams be postponed.
Odisha’s decision for making logistical arrangement for the NEET and JEE examinations came on a day six opposition-held states field a petition in SC seeking review of an earlier order upholding the exam dates.
The petition filed by cabinet ministers from six states - West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Punjab and Rajasthan said that SC did not consider safety of students writing the JEE and NEET exams ignoring logistical difficulties. The plea said that when classroom teaching is suspended all across the country, holding such a large scale exam shows “non application of mind”.
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