The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to MBBS and BDS courses was conducted on Sunday. Around 1.07 lakh candidates took the examination in Tamil Nadu. As many as 24,720 aspirants had opted to take the exam in Tamil.
The exam timing was from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Candidates were required to produce their admit card and passport-size photograph during the examination. Close to 5,000 candidates from Tamil Nadu appeared for the examination in Kerala. Many schools became venues for the examination.
Barred items
Notices from the CBSE pasted outside some exam centres listed the items that were barred inside the examination centres. Items such as geometry/pencil box, calculator, pouch, pen, pen drives, erasers, log table and communication devices like phones, Bluetooth, health band, transistor, capacitor, diode, triodes were barred. Eatables, water bottles, wallet, handbag, belt, cap, ATM/Credit/Debit Card, watch etc. were also found on the list.
Dress code
According to the notice, students were allowed to wear only light clothes with half sleeves. Clothes with big buttons, brooch or any badge, flowers, etc. didn’t make the cut. Students were instructed to wear slippers or sandals instead of shoes.
Students were asked to cut their long sleeves with scissors outside Wakf Board College, in Madurai.
Sacred thread or bands that students wore on their wrists were removed before they entered the examination hall. At many places, parents were adding more to the confusion than the students.
11,800 appearing in Madurai
A total of 11,800 students took exams in 20 centres in Madurai. Many from interior parts of southern districts were allotted centres in Madurai. Some students who came in the early hours on Sunday morning had to make use of public toilets in the bus stand.
With no permission to enter the examination centres before the stipulated time and nowhere to wait, large number of parents were seen waiting on the road outside the examination centres in places like Narimedu and P&T Nagar in the city.