Bihar Boy travels 700 km to NEET centre in 24 hours, late by 10 minutes, denied entry

To ensure proper health check-up as per COVID-19 protocol and security drill before examinations, NEET aspirants were instructed to arrive at the center three hours before the commencement of the examination.

NEET aspirant Santosh Kumar Yadav of Darbhanga in Bihar covered a distance of 700 km in 24 hours to write the exam. He changed two buses to appear for the exam, for which he had been preparing for months. However, as fate would have it, Yadav missed the NEET examination only by 10 minutes. He was delayed by 10 minutes and was not allowed to enter the examination center at Salt Lake in Kolkata.

"I begged the authorities but they said I was late. The exam started at 2 pm. I reached the center around 1.40 pm. The deadline to enter the center was 1.30 pm, I lost a year," he was quoted as saying.

NEET examiners were instructed to reach the examination center three hours before the examination, keeping in mind the safety and health check-up amid the COVID-19 crisis.

Also read

'Around 85-90 percent students appeared in NEET 2020 exam': Union Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank

Yadav said that he boarded a bus to reach Muzaffarpur from Darbhanga at 8 AM on Saturday. From there he got a bus to Patna. But he was delayed by six hours due to a traffic jam en route to Patna. From Patna, Yadav took a bus to Kolkata at 9 PM and reached Sealdah station at 1.06 PM. He took a taxi to the examination center but missed the exam by 10 minutes.

Earlier, a 19-year-old boy, Digant Mondal, cycled six hours from Gosaba, Sunderbans to reach the city examination center 75 km away to appear in the JEE exam. He eventually had to travel for two hours on public transport to reach the examination center in Salt Lake Sector V.

Also read

JEE Main Result 2020: 24 candidates score 100 percentile, check toppers list here

The entrance examination has been the subject of debate amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Activists, students, and leaders of several political parties opposed the exam for fear of protecting the students. Floods and lack of transportation increased students' troubles due to the lockout in many places.

A few days ago, a 19-year-old girl from Madurai and two other medical aspirants in Tamil Nadu committed suicide, prompting opposition parties to cancel the National Entrance-cum-Eligibility Test (NEET).