Human Right Commission writes to NBE on non provision of NEET exam centres

Thiruvanathapuram: Terming non provision of an examination centre in Kochi for OBC students to appear for the NEET examinations to be held in January 2018, as a serious violation of human rights as well as, a challenge on constitutional rights, the State's Human Rights Commission has given a directive to the National Board of Examination to resolve student problems and submit a report within three weeks. The Commission has also directed the state Chief Secretary and the Controller, Entrance Examinations to intervene and find a solution.

The Commission's Acting Chairman, P Mohandas which gave this directive, on Tuesday, was responding to a petition submitted by Akhil A Sunil, a youth hailing from Poovar, Thiruvananthapuram, whose wife was allotted Thirunelveli, Tamil Nadu as the exam centre.The lady was expecting to be able to appear for the exam from Kochi, reports TOI.

Medical Dialogues team had earlier reported that registration for the NEET PG 2018 exam turned out to be a harrowing experience for students, as website glitches and a shortage of exam centres, haunted the students right from the first day.

As soon as the registrations began, those registering complained of running out of exam centres, website glitches, long hours of having to wait for the upload to happen, in some cases inability to be able to change uploaded photographs too. Complaints of a more serious kind of the inability to make online payments, and in some cases, the payment records not showing on the website, also surfaced, when applicants were questioned.

The state of Kerala was worst hit having more than 12,000 doctors from the State, expected to apply for the NEET PG exam, but for which there are only 1,700 candidate slots, in the designated four centres. Congress MP, Thiruvananthapuram, Shashi Tharoor soon came out in support of students, stating that he will write to the HRD minister and demand for more seats and centres in Kerala for NEET-PG.

A similar situation persisted in other states. For instance, the city of Aurangabad, which houses the prestigious GMC Aurangabad was not allotted a centre, causing inconvenience to students who planned to sit for the NEET exam, 2018 as they would have to incur the expense to travel distances to appear for the examination.