Over 500 NEET Aspirants Miss Exam Over Train Delay In Karnataka, No Alternative Yet

Bengaluru: Student bodies in several parts of Karnataka carried out protests on Sunday after nearly 500 aspirants missed out on giving their NEET exam due to delay in train services.

The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) exams, conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) for admission to professional medical courses were conducted on Sunday.

The 16591- Hampi Express en route to Bengaluru reached at 2:30 pm, an hour after the scheduled reporting time for NEET that was 1:30 pm.

The Indian Railways clarified that the delay was caused due to ongoing maintenance work in Guntkal, South Central Division. Chief Public Relations Officer of South Western Railway E Vijaya told a leading daily that the reserved passengers were given intimation by SMS ahead of the timings of the the diversion and rescheduling on the mobile numbers.

Former Chief Minister of Karnataka Siddaramaiah took to Twitter complaining the plight of the students to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“Mr. @narendramodi, You pat your own back for others’ achievements but will you also take responsibility for your cabinet min’ incapabilities. Hundreds of students in Karnataka may not be able to take up NEET because of delay in the train services,” the former CM tweeted.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy wrote on the official chief minister’s handle on Twitter and tagged ministers to intervene in the issue.

The demand for the re-exam comes at a time when several student bodies and political parties have called to scrap the NEET exam. In Tamil Nadu, the Congress and its ally, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) had used the occasion to target the Modi-led government and asked for the scrapping of NEET.

Earlier, due to the Lok Sabha ongoing elections, the NTA had changed the examination centres of several candidates. Over 15 lakh candidate had appeared for the exam.

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