NEET-2019 in 10 Indian languages to be held in offline mode on May 5

Hyderabad: Students, who attempt NEET-2019 in Kannada, Tamil or any such language, are forced to appear for examinations in the States of their mother tongue.

According to the sources, the National Testing Agency (NTA), which will be conducting the NEET-2019 this year on May 5 across nearly 150 cities and in about 2,500 examination centres, have decided to hold the examinations in 10 Indian languages (ILs), apart from English through offline mode with the paper-based examination (PBE). For this, the NTA has made elaborate arrangements.

Speaking to The Hans India, sources in the NTA said, NEET-2019 question papers in English, Hindi and Urdu are made available at the examination centres throughout the country.

But it is not so in case of other Indian languages, he added.

For example, students who want to appear for NEET-2019 examination and attempt in Telugu medium can only get the question papers in Telugu only in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

Similarly, students who are living in either Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam or Nagpur want to attempt NEET-2019 in Kannada medium will be required to go to Karnataka.

Meanwhile, fears are expressed over the NTA handling the entire process.

Giving reasons for the same, senior faculty members who attended an orientation programme organised by the NTA at Bengaluru from Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh, said, "The NTA invited about 800 people from the examination centres identified to hold the NEET-2019.

But, against the number of invitees, nearly 1,300 persons from Andhra Pradesh,

Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Goa attended the programme.

This indicated that the identification and registration of the representatives from various examination centres were not properly done. Besides, there seemed no physical verification of the examination centres before finalising them to hold the examination centre, said another senior professor who attended the programme from Tirupathi.

However, the NTA has planned for making elaborate arrangements for conducting the examinations. Accordingly, the trunks containing the question papers are geo-tagged to identify its designated place and for tracking. Similarly, Chief Superintendent of the examination centres will receive an SMS at 1.15 PM on his pre-identified mobile number.

In turn, he will be in a position to open the digital lockers with the password received on his mobile.

In case of failure to open the digital locker with the password, the same could be opened only by inserting two RFID cards provided to the NTA representatives and an observer.

There are also provisions made to open the trunk if the officials fail to open in the first two instances, he said.

Only 24 candidates are allowed to give their test in each examination hall and the Chief Superintendent of the centre will have to report to the NTA on the attendance of the students giving examination at his or her centre by 2.05 pm.

And, the entire process, including the ceiling of the trunks containing the question papers should be completed by 5.15 pm.

"While the entire process is meticulously planned lack of coordination is the one aspect which is worrying several of us who attended the orientation programme," said a senior faculty member from a private engineering college, Bellary in Karnataka.