JOIN USThe CBSE on Sunday said the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) was conducted "very smoothly" all over the country.
While the only issue that cropped up was that exams in four centres — one each in Tamil Nadu, Assam, Maharashtra and West Bengal — was delayed, the death of the father of one of the medical aspirants who had come to write his exam at a Kochi centre was a tragic development.
S Krishnaswamy (46), who worked as a government librarian in Thiruthuraipoondi in the Thiruvarur district of Tamil Nadu had accompanied his son Kasturi Mahalingam, who appeared for the test at the Nalanda Public School in Thammanam.
Krishnaswamy's death comes even as the debate over the insufficient number of exam numbers in Tamil Nadu was raging, with the Opposition parties earlier slamming the CBSE over it. The Opposition in Tamil Nadu claimed that it was the stress caused by the allotment of exam centres that had caused the death.
The examination at a centre in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, was delayed, reportedly by three hours, as about 100 Tamil medium NEET aspirants were given bilingual question papers in Hindi and English.
The board attributed the delay in starting examinations at the four centres to "administrative reasons".
"However, in all these cases, extra time was given and all affected students were able to take the examinations," the CBSE said in a statement.
Over 10 lakh students took the test held at 2,255 centres in 136 cities across the country.
Krishnaswamy and Kasturi were staying at Airlines hotel in Ernakulam. Feeling uneasy in the morning, the father had asked the hotel manager, a relative of his, to take Kasturi to the exam centre.
After his son had left, he complained of chest pain, and later passed away at a hospital to which he was taken.
Both Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan ordered for necessary steps to be taken to transport Krishnaswamy's body to this hometown.