Students’ plight
Centres in other states allotted just two days ahead of the exam
Trains full, flights beyond reach, no direct buses to many cities
Taxis, private vehicles are options for travelling
Exam becomes costlier; candidates will have to reach a day before; stay in hotels
BBA exams are also going on; students won’t skip exams to take CUET in other cities
Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Travelling 10, 20 or even 50 kilometres for writing an exam is understandable, but to expect a student to cover a distance of 600 kilometres is too much to ask for.
Around 3,000 local students, who had registered for common university entrance test (CUET) for admission in postgraduate courses offered by all the central and many state universities including Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya, will have to travel to states like Biparjoy cyclone hit- Gujarat and Rajasthan to write an exam on June 17.
Trains are full, flights are beyond reach and direct buses for many exam cities are unavailable, leaving students with options of taxis and private vehicles.
Plus, the journey by road will be exhausting and students will also have to bear hotel expenses for appearing in CUET-PG in other cities.
Thousands of local students woke up to these shocks on Wednesday morning when National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts CUET, released admit cards and city information slips, two days ahead of the exam, scheduled on June 17.
They were allotted exam centres in Rajkot, Surat, Ahmedabad, Mehsana, Kota, Jaipur etc even when these cities were not in their preference list.
Taken completely aback, many students rushed to the DAVV seeking help for change in exam city, some logged onto the Indian railway website to check the availability of reservations in trains, while many others dropped their plan for appearing in the entrance exam.
“I have been allotted an exam centre in a city located in Gujarat which is 600 km from Indore. I have requested DAVV to talk to NTA and get the centre allotted that is nearest from my hometown,” said candidate Kashi Parihar.
Another candidate Ishu Sharma, “I came to know about my centre three days before the exam. The major issue is that I have been allotted Kota as the centre even though it was not in the list of cities I chose as my preference. It is very difficult to book tickets, travel, and then to appear for the exam at a place which is unknown to me at such a short notice. DAVV is my priority, however, due to this goof-up I am forced to not appear for the exam."
Not only Indoreans, but candidates from nearby districts were also on tenterhooks.
Khargone-based Om Kushwah said that he was allotted Mehsana as an exam centre. “I have no clue why Mehsana was allotted to me even when it was not in the list of cities I had mentioned in my preference. I am leaving immediately as there is no direct bus to Mehsana from Khargone. It is to be noted that around 78,000 students had registered for CUET-UG eying admission in 15 MBA programmes of DAVV.
NTA’s move unfortunate: DAVV
DAVV admission coordinator Prof Kanhaiya Ahuja said that NTA officials told them that all centres in MP had got full so candidates were allotted cities in Gujarat and Rajasthan as exam centres.
“We don’t buy this excuse. It’s unfortunate that NTA did not make arrangements for students in their preferred cities or cities nearest to their hometowns for entrance exams. We have written an email to NTA expressing discontent over the mess up. We have also written that city information slips should have been distributed at least a week ahead of the exam so that students could have got a chance to make travel arrangements,” he stated.
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