4,600 students take NEET-UG at 10 exam centres in city

The medical entrance exam, National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG), was held amid strict monitoring and security measures at 10 centres here today.

As many as 4,848 candidates had registered for the test. More than 95 per cent registered students, accounting for over 4,600 pupils, appeared for the test, said Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC) Amandeep Singh Bhatti.

Mock drills were held at all centres on Saturday to ensure a smooth conduct of the nationwide exam. Most of the centres were located in government and government-aided schools, colleges, universities and institutions.

No untoward incident has been reported from inside or outside any of the 10 centres, said SSP Kanwardeep Kaur.

However, sporadic incidents of the candidates objecting to the removal of their certain sacred items, which they were wearing, before entering the exam hall were reported.

There were three layers of monitoring at the district, state and central levels.

Transporting question papers under police escort, monitoring coaching centres to identify organised cheating rackets, multi-layered frisking by the police in addition to the deployment of designated security personnel at the exam centres were among the steps taken by the National Testing Agency (NTA), governed by the Union Education Ministry.

The strict measures came a year after alleged irregularities, including paper leak, were flagged in NEET-UG.

Under scrutiny over last year's irregularities in NEET-UG and the PhD entrance exams, the Centre had set up a panel to ensure "transparent, smooth and fair" conduct of the exams by the NTA. The University Grants Commission-National Eligibility Test (UGC-NET) was cancelled last year after the ministry received input that its integrity was compromised. Both matters are being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Two other exams -- CSIR-UGC NET and NEET-PG -- were cancelled at the last moment as a pre-emptive step.