BAHADURGARH
(JHAJJAR): It all started with a double error at two centres and now even an impressive score of 641 out of 720 might not be enough to get
Jhajjar
's
Komal Rani
a medical college seat in the country. After all the controversy over perfect scores, alleged paper leak, and grace marks, she is among the thousands of losing aspirants who now feel cheated.
The
National Testing Agency
(
NTA
) had conducted the elite National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) on May 5.
Finishing 31 marks above the last year's cutoff score of 610 had given Komal a lot of hope until the grace marks awarded to more than 1,500 candidates for time loss pushed the bar higher this year. She said: "My father, sole breadwinner of family, had invested a big part of his modest income in my education and coaching. What do I do now?"
NEET candidate Bhawna Dalal shares her experience of Bahadurgarh's Hardyal Public School examination centre that churned out eight top scorers nationally despite this event's statistical improbability. She said: "The centre's 600-odd candidates received a wrong question-paper set and when the invigilator at fault took it back after 25-odd minutes to issue a fresh one, we had to start all over again. Many students from my centre received grace marks for this time loss, but I was among the many who didn't and lost out on extra credit."
Jaivikash Nandal, many students of whose Jhajjar coaching institute wrote the test at Hardyal Public School and SR Century Public School, the two controversial centres in Bahadurgarh, said: "Out of its two sets of question papers, the NTA had saved the primary set with the State Bank of India and the backup set with Canara Bank. It should have distributed only the SBI set, but the two schools issued both sets, which was only the start of confusion. After 25-odd minutes, they made their second mistake of withdrawing the SBI set that the rest of the candidates nationwide had in their hands. Only two centres in the country solved the Canara Bank set, which was of a higher difficulty."
Confronted, Hardyal Public School principal Anshu Yadav and director Anuradha Yadav declined to comment, saying they had given their versions to the NTA. At SR Century Public School, principal V N Jha, who was also the NTA coordinator on May 5, acknowledged the initial confusion but declined to comment on time loss and grace marks.
While the toppers have declined to sit another NEET, the other aspirants want a retest for all candidates and not just for a few recipients of grace marks. They claim it to be a question of trust and the examination's sanctity after a few paper-leak-related arrests in some states.
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