Amid the hullaballoo surrounding the NEET and JEE examinations this year, students have also pointed out the difficulty to travel to their test centres due to the COVID-19 pandemic, subsequent lockdowns and severe floods in several states like Bihar, Assam, etc. To solve this problem, four current students and an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, have designed a web portal to help candidates appearing for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test and Joint Entrance Examination find transport assistance to their test centres. Launched on Sunday, Eduride is a web portal/website that will be able to connect aspirants across the country with volunteers near their area who are willing to drive or arrange a vehicle for them to their respective test centres.
"We began working on it Friday and quickly completed it in a matter of two days. There are two aspects to the portal — aspirants can request for a ride from remote areas, visit the Eduride portal/website and register themselves with centre details, addresses etc. The second aspect is the alumni or other people in the area who want to volunteer to arrange for a vehicle, drive themselves or even donate for the aspirants so we can arrange for a cab. We then map a volunteer to a particular student who can make the travel arrangements and decide the timings between themselves. It is open for anybody and the service is available all over India. We have also partnered with a few cab services so for unmatched students we can provide them with the facility with the help of donations. Basically, for aspirants, this service is completely free of cost," Kriti Kamna, a final year Electrical Engineering student at IIT Bombay, who is a part of the Eduride team tells Edex.
The five-member team consists of four current IIT Bombay students and one alumnus. "Eduride has been created to solve the pertinent issue of transport posed by the Coronavirus crisis. The future of the nation, our students are going to sit for various exams next month including JEE Mains, JEE Advance and NEET. After spending two years of hard work, no student should lose out on an opportunity due to unforeseen circumstances. We are motivated to provide help to all aspiring candidates appearing for these exams," she adds.
Here is a step-by-step explanation of how you can help and students can register themselves:
How can an aspirant request for a ride?
Please visit https://www.eduride.in/ and register yourselves as a "Student". Enter the details of your exam centre and raise a request for a ride.
How can you volunteer?
Please visit https://www.eduride.in/ and register yourselves as "Alumni/Volunteer". You will then have the option to:
(a) Drive the student from your area to his/her exam centre
(b) Make a donation to facilitate a cab service for the exam-takers
In just a matter of two days, the portal has received over 400 entries for transport facilities. IIT Bombay director Subhasis Chaudhuri lauded the students and alumni for the efforts and said: "In order to help the JEE (Main) and NEET candidates in various locations across the country, several students and alumni of IIT, have come forward to connect needy candidates with the volunteers willing to help in transport or monetarily through an online portal http://eduride.in. I request volunteers to help in providing transport to the needy candidates in their neighbourhood. Let us all help the future engineers, doctors and scientists of India."
