Following allegations of a paper leak of the National Entrance-cum-Eligibility Test Undergraduate (NEET UG) in Rajasthan, a similar situation emerged in the Balod region of Chhattisgarh, where a wrong set of question papers was delivered to students at the Government Boys Adarsh Higher Secondary School and Girls School exam centre, resulting in a chaotic situation, says a report by Times of India.
This apparent incompetence in conducting the NEET UG exam left approximately 400 students in despair when the authorities informed them of the mistake and issued a new set of question papers half an hour after the exam began. This abrupt change in conditions confused students and robbed them of important time and concentration.
Arun Kumar Sahu, principal of the Boys’ School, tells Times of India that the administration realised what had happened half an hour after the exam started, and that question papers procured from Canara Bank were distributed instead of those procured from the State Bank of India.
The papers from Canara Bank were distributed only in the two aforementioned centres, while those from SBI were distributed across Balod.
Sahu further told the Times of India that two sets of question papers are provided by the National Testing Agency (NTA) as per the rules. If the SBI exam papers cannot be used, the Canara Bank question papers can be used instead, according to him.
Students preparing for the NEET exam and their parents also voiced their unhappiness with the absence of effective supervision and demanded responsibility from the authorities, according to the Times of India report.
They said they were granted an additional 15-20 minutes to compensate for the time they had lost.
When asked about the extra 10-15 minutes, the principal admitted that the candidates should have been awarded the entire time they had lost during the procedure, as per the Times of India report.
Relatives and parents, outraged by the alleged lack of accountability, have demanded a thorough investigation into the matter and advocated for the exam to be cancelled.
