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Social distancing norms broken outside some NDA exam centres in Chandigarh
Parents crowded around the gate on the outside, passing water bottles and food to their wards through the railings.
Social distancing norms went for a toss at some of the centres where the National Defence Academy (NDA) and Naval Academy (NA) examinations were conducted on Sunday.
More than 26,000 students were set to appear for the exam that constituted a mathematics part from 10am-12:30pm and a general aptitude portion held between 2pm to 4:30pm. Due to lack of clarity on rules, however, the gates to the Sector-33 Government Model Senior Secondary School (GMSSS), one of the 65 designated centres, remained closed during the gap between the two exams, when the students were supposed to have their lunch.
A total of 480 students were supposed to appear for the exam at the Sector-33 centre. Parents crowded around the gate on the outside, passing water bottles and food to their wards through the railings.
Police posted at the gates said, “We did not receive any instructions from inside the centre, so the gates will remain closed.”
Meanwhile, other centres operated normally and opened for lunch.
Himanshu Mittal from Abohar at GMSSS, Sector 35, said the exam was generally easy. Most students said the questions on integration and probability were the toughest.
Kunal Singh, who provides NDA coaching at Sector 34, said this year UPSC left out questions of general geography and focused on agricultural geography instead. “Phrases and idioms and reading comprehension were also missing from the English section. In math, around 19 out of 120 questions were of the advanced JEE-level while 17 questions were from previous years.”
LESS THAN 50% ATTENDANCE IN CLASSROOMS
Most of the classrooms registered less than 50% attendance. Aniket Singh from Mohali said although his classroom was supposed to adjust 24 students, only eight turned up. Other students also confirmed that the attendance remained low.
For some students, both NDA and JEE Main exams were held on the same day. Arshdeep Singh of Amritsar had his JEE Main in Amritsar, but had instead chosen to travel to Chandigarh to sit in the NDA exam.
Even though nine special trains were run to ferry students from various stations in Punjab, Haryana and even Himachal Pradesh to Chandigarh, most candidates preferred to travel to the centres themselves.
Dipanshu from Jalandhar said he felt safere taking a taxi from Jalandhar rather than depending on the train. Jitender Bhaskar who came from Karnal added that the trains would have reached just hours before the exam, so many students had come to the city a day in advance to get proper rest.
