R'than panel to look into med test gripes

Following the allegation of discrepancies, Rajasthan government on Monday constituted a four-member committee to probe into the complaints of irregularities in Rajasthan Pre-Medical Test (RPMT)-2014.

Government has assured the students that it will cancel the exam and conduct a fresh test in case any irregularity is found.

Meanwhile, students have also filed a petition in Rajasthan High court demanding cancellation of the exam and conduct fair probe by a former Justice of High Court.
Candidates had expressed their resentment on wrong questions immediately after the exams conducted in six batches from May 28 to 30.

They also expressed their dissatisfaction with the marking methodology and had alleged that the formula used led to several discrepancies after the final results were out.

A group of annoyed  students and their parents even protested outside the residence of Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje.

Government has announced a probe committee  comprising of former RPMT convenor Dr Rajesh Sharma, Dr R K Manohar, Dr Jagdish Choudhary and IT Department Secretary Tapan Kumar.

The committee has been asked to submit its report to the Chief Minister’s Office  within a week.

Vasundhara Raje has also asked Medical and Health Minister Rajendra Rathore to produce a factual report on the alleged RPMT examination process and results declared recently in view of candidates’ complaints.

Meanwhile, officials of Rajasthan University of Health Sciences (RUHS) claimed that they have declared the result based on the use of statistical equipercentile method to achieve uniform evaluation of the merit of candidates who appeared in RPMT 2014.

Officials of RUHS accepted that there were some wrong questions in the paper. They said that since the number of wrong questions varies from one batch to another, the RUHS used the statistical equipercentile method to declare the result.

“Equipercentile methodology was adopted for equating and ranking procedure and to decide the final ranking,” said exam coordinator D K Gupta.

“According to equipercentile method, if out of 200 questions four are wrong, then marks are calculated on the basis of 196 questions and the university used this statistical method,” he added.

Gupta informed that around 470 complaints have come from the candidates which have been sent to the new committee.

The test which was conducted in six batches around 7,500 candidates in each batch adding up to 41,911 candidates. Around 1,099 CCTV cameras were installed in examination centres to prevent any cheating, RUHS claimed.