Over 11 lakh MBBS, BDS aspirants appear for NEET exam today

www.mangaloretoday.com

New Delhi, May 7 2017: Over 11.38 lakh students took the national eligibility-cum-entrance test (NEET) held across the country on Sunday, amid reports that the authorities refused to allow some candidates entry into test centres in some of cities as they failed to follow the prescribed dress code.

In the initial hours of the test, there were also reports of Bihar police arresting two persons in Patna on charges of leaking the NEET papers.

However, there was no official confirmation from the CBSE on whether the test papers recovered from the persons arrested by the Bihar police were original or fake.

Last year too, there were reports from Patna and Uttar Pradesh about paper leaks. However, it later turned out that the accused had previous year’s questions in possession when verified by the authorities.

The central board of secondary education conducted the test at a total of 1,921 centres in 103 cities across the country. The test papers came in 10 different languages.

A total of 11,38,890 students appeared for the test. Of the total candidates registered for the test, 1,522 were non resident Indians (NRIs) and 613 were foreigners.

The test was held for admissions to 95,000 under-graduate programmes which included 65,000 seats for MBBS and 25000 for the BDS.

The results of the test are scheduled to be declared on June 8, a CBSE official said.The CBSE had barred candidates from entering examination halls wearing full sleeve clothes, shoes and any type of ornaments. It had also restricted students from bringing any stationary item with them.

The dress code and other restrictions were put in place to ensure that a free and fair examination was held as use of high tech electronic gadgets by students in cheating in examinations have emerged as a new menace.

“All the students were given pens at the examination hall to take the test,” official sources said.

In recent years, several cases have come to light where students were caught using blue-tooth enabled communication devices for cheating in various examinations.

The CBSE had to re-conduct the All India Pre-medical and Dental Test (AIPMT) in 2015 as many of the students were caught cheating in examinations using micro blue-tooth enabled communication devices fitted into their ears.

At least 490 officials of the CBSE were deployed to ensure smooth conduct of the test across the country. Besides, a total of 3,500 observers were also deployed, a CBSE official said.