COVID negative student who coughed and was evicted from NEET centre, allegedly denied permission to write NEET 2

A student who coughed while writing NEET on September 13, claims to have been evicted from the exam hall and marked 'Absent'. While that was within the norms and SOPs laid down by the NTA, she was shocked to learn that she wasn't eligible to write NEET phase II, held across India on October 14.

The National Testing Agency on Wednesday conducted phase II of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for students who missed the exam after contracting COVID or because they were stuck in containment zones. However, even on the day of the exam, a lack of clarity on many counts have left the students in a fix.

For instance, the notification nowhere talks about symptomatic students who were not allowed to write the exam on September 13. Prachi Sharma, who hails from Delhi claims that she was sent out of the examination hall because she coughed a couple of times. She now says that she was denied permission to write the second phase of the exam too. 

"I wasn't COVID positive, but I coughed a few times because I wasn't used to wearing masks. Upon hearing this, the invigilator asked me to go out of the exam centre, even before the question paper was distributed. I was shocked. I did not know what was happening," says Prachi. Even though she sent multiple emails to the NTA about this, none of them yielded a response, she says. When her registration number is entered, she is marked absent on the NTA website. 

The Supreme Court ruling on October 12 came as a relief to her, as she harboured hopes of writing the exam. "Without wasting any time, I called the NTA helpline, but I was informed that I couldn't write the exam, since I was neither COVID positive, nor was in a containment zone. Even though I sent them a COVID negative certificate, they did not respond," she says. "The exam is happening today, I still have no confirmation from the NTA," she adds.

At the same time, a few other students have also taken it to Twitter saying that they did not receive their admit cards even on the day of the exam. A student who was COVID positive on September 13 said that she did not hear back from the NTA even after sending all the necessary documents.
 

The NTA has not responded to any queries regarding this issue. This copy will be updated when they do.