In a heartwarming move, Tamil people residing in other states are coming forward to help NEET candidates who are struggling to make it to their exam centres. The CBSE on Thursday - just three days before the exam - appealed to the Supreme Court to allot exam centres for Tamil Nadu students outside the state. This means that TN students will have to travel to places as far as Rajasthan to write their exams besides states like Kerala and Karnataka.
With just two days left for the exam, students are being forced to run from pillar to post trying to figure how to book their tickets, where to stay and how they are going to manage in a city foreign to them. When instead they should be brushing up on their syllabus. Many parents had previously booked tickets and made booked hotels for stay but after the High Court had directed CBSE to allot centres inside the state, they had cancelled their plans. And now after the CBSE appealed to Supreme Court, the parents have no clue what to do.
In order to extend some sort of help to these candidates, Tamil people living in Rajasthan and Kerala are coming up with small ways that they can help the students. The Tamil Nadu government has also offered Rs 1000 for travel and has launched a helpline as well.
The Rajasthan Tamil Sangam, a 25-year old association of Tamils is trying to arrange transport for students within the city, help them with any language barriers and better still, they are opening up their own doors to the candidates. "Just this morning (Friday), we were discussing the issue and suddenly we thought why not try and help these students. Since it is last minute we're not completely prepared, we don't have everything sorted out but we figured we can share our contacts so people can call and accordingly we can figure out how to help," said Dr Soundaranayaki, from the association.
"It's a Sunday after all, so all of us will be free. So if someone needs to travel within the city we can go and pick them up. If they are struggling with the language then we can help as well. Right now, we haven't been able to make any arrangements for accommodation. From the number of people who have contacted us, it seems like we would be able to accommodate them in our houses, we also have a dorm with about 15 hostel rooms but we're trying to arrange other accommodation as well," said Bharath Gopalasamy.
In Kerala, Dr Manoharan who lives in Kollam is also offering support to the candidates, "Since we don't have much time, we haven't been able to do much but I'm offering guidance to the students about any queries they might have about the place. All the hotels are booked so I'm unable to arrange accommodation but I'm trying," he explained.
Dinesh Kumar D from Erode, who is currently residing in Dubai has also come forward to offer funds to those students in need, "The Anita incident really impacted me on a personal level. So I don't want something like this to happen again so I'm trying to do my bit for the students. I'm not too rich or anything, I work in a regular but I still felt like offering. I've asked my other friends too and they have offered to help as well, so we can transfer the money," he explained.
About 1500 students are being forced to attend the exam in other states but the numbers are still unclear,"There are only ten cities where there are centres this time. Also, most of the students who are being forced to travel are from rural areas because they are the ones who weren't able to find a centre close to their homes," said Dr Ravindranath, activist.
Following suit, a number of other people have come together to help the candidates, from offering their cars to funding ticket fees to offering their homes. There have been many times in the past when Tamil people have come together to help, starting from the floods to now, for our very own students.
Many people have come together to sponsor help-
