Cong slams CBSE over insufficient NEET centres

Disappointed at the "last-minute" Supreme Court stay on arranging more NEET exam centres in Tamil Nadu, the Congress on Saturday demanded that the Centre should direct the CBSE to immediately set up additional centres for the entrance test to avoid inconvenience to candidates.

AICC joint secretary Ruchi Gupta told reporters that the CBSE's appeal in the Supreme Court has put students and their families to "tremendous inconvenience and expense" at a time when all their energies should be focused on an important and highly competitive exam.

"This also imperils the future of students and makes us question the grounds on which the CBSE decided to appeal against a pro-student order by the Madras High Court. CBSE is an institution that is responsible for the future of millions of young students in the country. It is highly condemnable that CBSE lost sight of this fact," Gupta, who is also in charge of Congress' student wing NSU (I), said.

"Failing this (setting up centres), the Centre should bear the travel and lodging expenses of the Tamil Nadu students and their guardians travelling to their assigned NEET centres that are outside of their state," she said.

Accusing the CBSE of not preparing properly, she said there was no excuse for the CBSE to not have allocated sufficient centres within Tamil Nadu when it had knowledge in advance of the huge number of applications from the state.

"It is dismaying that the CBSE was unable to find suitable centres within Tamil Nadu, which is one of the most developed states in the country and is home to several well-equipped institutions of higher learning," Ruchi said.

According to her, the CBSE office in Chennai has asked 5,371 students from the state to write exams outside Tamil Nadu, while NEET Director Sanyam Bharadwaj said 1,000 to 1,500 students were allotted centres outside the state.

"Why is the CBSE unable to clearly state the number of students from Tamil Nadu allotted centres outside the state? This confusion clearly points to the sorry state of affairs within the CBSE," she said.