India holds JEE exams amid COVID-19 fears

One of India’s most competitive college exams- which determine the fate of millions of young people- begins on Tuesday, amid a surge in coronavirus cases and protests.

JEE exams are scheduled to be held from September 1 to 6.

Many students have campaigned to delay the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) . Social media has been floated by pleas to delay the test and students have even taken the concern to court.

But the National Testing Agency(NTA) which conducts the exam, has refused to reschedule it. The Supreme Court also dismissed the students’ plea earlier saying that “ultimately life has to go on and the career of the students cannot be put on peril for long and a full academic year cannot be wasted”.

The exam is being conducted with special arrangements, from no shoes with thick soles to mandatory masks at exam hall – several arrangements have been made by the NTA.

Over 10 lakh masks, 10 lakh pairs of gloves, 1,300 infrared thermometer guns, 6,600 litres of hand sanitiser and an equal amount of disinfectant liquid, 6,600 sponges, 3,300 spray bottles and 3,300 cleaning staff have been arranged at an additional cost of almost Rs 13 crore. The exam will be conducted at 660 centres across the country, which was increased from 570.

While the governments of Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have assured students that they will provide transportation to candidates, a group of IIT alumni and students have also launched a portal to provide transport facilities to exam centres for the candidates in need.

Meanwhile, in a major announcement today, the Nagpur Bench of the Bomaby High Court said that students residing in flood-affected areas in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra can approach the National Testing Agency, if they were unable to reach the exam centre or reached late. The court also asked NTA to check the veracity of the claims and decide their representation within 15 days.

Another hugely competitive exam, the NEET (the National Eligibility Entrance Test) will be conducted on September 13.