Several candidates and student organizations approached the Union Education Ministry and the National Testing Agency to request an extension for the Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced) registration deadline after the organizing institute, IIT-Guwahati, decided not to do so.
While the Students Federation of India (SFI) wrote to Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan requesting his intervention, a delegation from the government-supporting Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) met with NTA representatives asking that the registration deadline, which was on May 7, be extended.
According to Mayukh Biswas, general secretary of SFI, the NTA was not conducting exams in a transparent way. The JEE (Advanced) will not be offered to a number of candidates because of their exclusive mindset. The final two days for submission were a Saturday and a Sunday, and the IIT-Guwahati did not reply to questions regarding technical issues. We understand that about 40,000 applications were not processed,” Mr. Biswas said adding that the SFI had written to Mr. Pradhan on this.
Former ABVP national president Milind Marathe said that a team from the organization, led by Yagywalkya Shukla, national general secretary, met with NTA representatives and delivered a memorandum. “We have demanded that the date for submission be extended. Such extensions were previously granted in light of the students’ technological difficulties. We anticipate the NTA will administer all exams in an error-free manner. In the recently held UGC National Eligibility Test also, there were a number of reports about hacking the computers,” Mr. Marathe said.
An IIT candidate who can take the JEE (Advanced) after the JEE (Main) claimed his mother sold her jewelry to pay for his tuition at a coaching facility. “I’m from a small town, thus I had trouble submitting the form. I tried on Saturday (May 6) and Sunday (May 7), but no one answered from IIT-Guwahati. Between April 30 and May 7, we had a very constrained amount of time to finish the registration procedure, he continued. Another student stated that the students’ helpline was not available to him. “We wrote mails, but got a ready-made reply that registration is closed,” he claimed.
The institute got 1.95 applications for the exams from 2.5 lakh eligible applicants following the JEE (Main), according to Bishnupada Mandal, the head of the tests’ organizing committee, who spoke to The Hindu on Wednesday. The applications are often received within four or five days. This year, we had eight days for registration and one day for payment of the fees. We have no option to extend the period at this time because the dates were very prolonged and a sizable number of candidates registered, the official added.
