More than 10,000 students appeared for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test at 25 centres in Coimbatore and more than 16,500 boys and girls appeared for the NEET held at 31 centres in Salem and Namakkal districts on Sunday.
The supervisors screened students for paper, pencil box, electronic items, goggles, wallet and other banned items. They also stopped students who were with full sleeve shirts. And only after they cut the sleeves or changed shirts did the supervisors let them in.
Tension prevailed near the Vidya Mandir School centre in Salem city, when three students – two girls and a boy, were refused permission to enter the examination centre, as they were late by a few minutes. The parents tried to convince the police and the officials, who were unrelenting. Taken aback, the parents blocked the traffic on the Meyyanur road. They raised slogans demanding the officials to allow the students to write the examinations. The sudden agitation led to severe traffic congestion on both sides of this busy road. The students and parents said that as schools with the same name functioned in a few other areas, they got confused and hence they suffered delay in reporting at the right venue.
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However, the officials pacified them explaining the strict rules put forth by the higher-ups, following which they dispersed peacefully. The affected students could not control their emotions and broke down while leaving the scene. The parents and others present on the scene consoled them.
In Coimbatore, candidates from Perundurai, Tirupur, Mettupalayam and Palakkad also took the exam at the centres in the city.
Even students from Tiruvannamalai took the test in the city. Banu from the temple town had taken her daughter to Coimbatore for the test on Sunday. The girl underwent a month's training for NEET at a centre in Thrissur. Several students in Salem and Namakkal districts too had gone to special coaching centres in different parts of the State and also Thrissur.
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Smitha, a parent in Coimbatore, said some of the friends of her son did not get a centre in Coimbatore and had travelled to Bengaluru for the examination. Praneet, a CBSE student from the city, said that the question paper was easy. A few students said that physics section was tough compared to other subjects.
Parents waited outside the examination centres on even on the road in some places till the exam got over at 1 p.m.