NEET centre falls short of question papers

Dibrugarh, May 7: The shocking as well as unfortunate incident of more than 100 question papers of NEET (medical entrance examination) falling short on May 6 – the day of the test – has sparked a huge row here. The test, which was conducted by CBSE in seven centres in Dibrugarh, went about smoothly except for one centre where things unfolded quite unexpectedly. When the students arrived to write the test at Vivekananda Kendra Vidyalaya, which was to be held from 10am to 1pm, they did not know that many among them could return home only at 4 pm, three hours behind the stipulated time-frame.

When the examiners saw that question papers were short, they decided to step out of the CBSE rule book and conducted the examination twice by recycling the same question papers. As a result, while some students were allowed to sit for the test in the morning half, the remaining candidates could do the same only in the afternoon after the morning batch submitted their question papers to the authority concerned. Even that arrangement failed to solve the issue at hand, for several students whose medium was Assamese were given Hindi-medium question papers, something most of them could not fathom. Consequently, many of them were seen leaving the examination hall quite early.

The news spread fast, and soon there was unrest in front of the school. The situation reverted to normal only when police were deployed. But the people here were left in disbelief. They could not understand how such an examination could be subjected to this degree of lax and frivolity.