Amid the country facing the Covid-19 pandemic, Delhi government on Wednesday demanded that the NEET and JEE be postponed and the Centre work on alternative methods for selecting students for engineering and medicine courses.
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said how one can take the risk of sending 28 lakh students to exam centres and be assured that they will not be infected at a time when even top leaders are getting infected by Covid-19.
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Sisodia's demand came on a day when Congress president Sonia Gandhi called a meeting of Opposition Chief Ministers, including West Bengal's Mamata Banerjee, for formulating a strategy to oppose the conducting of NEET and JEE amid the pandemic. However, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Delhi's Arvind Kejriwal did not attend.
"The Centre is saying that protocols will be followed. Following the same protocols that the Centre wants 28 lakh students to follow, lakhs of Indians have tested positive," Sisodia said adding that Union Home Amit Shah himself tested positive despite staying in a very safe environment.
Appealing to the Centre to explore "alternative methods" of admission, he said the government should not be adamant on admission only through these exams.
"We are not at all saying that the year is declared as a zero academic year. We are not in favour of admitting students just like that as we will need quality doctors and engineers but banking upon only a three-hour exam and expecting it to work like a magic wand in identifying talent, is a very conservative thought," he said
The Centre has made it clear that it will not change the schedule for JEE and NEET in September.
Several Opposition leaders like Rahul Gandhi, Banerjee, DMK chief MK Stalin and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik have demanded that the exams be postponed.
A total of 9.53 lakh candidates have registered for JEE-Mains while 15.97 lakh have registered for NEET.