By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, August 25, 2020: Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday sought the postponement of JEE (Main) and NEET over Covid-19 fears arguing that it will be unsafe for students to visit examination centres physically.

Earlier, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and Tamil Nadu education minister MK Stalin had demanded the postponement of the examinations due to Covid-19 pandemic. Maharashtra minister Aaditya Thackeray, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and BJP leader Subramanian Swamy too had demanded postponement of the examination.

But last week, the Supreme Court had rejected petitions against holding the exams amid the Covid pandemic.

In a letter to union education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Patnaik said that due to prevailing coronavirus situation in the country, it would be highly unsafe and perilous for 50000 students of the state to visit the examination centres physically to appear in these tests.

“Besides, frequent lockdown/shutdown is being enforced by the concerned district administrations due to sudden escalation of the COVID positive case locally, the local transportation too gets disrupted,” he wrote. The JEE(Main) and NEET exams are scheduled to be held in September.

On Tuesday, Odisha reported 2752 new Covid-19 cases from all its 30 districts taking the total to 84231.

Patnaik’s letter made it clear that as Odisha has got vast tribal pockets having geographically inaccessible areas, students would have to travel long distances. He also suggested opening of examination centres in all 30 districts of Odisha instead of just 7. In June, Patnaik had requested Modi to postpone JEE, NEET till the higher secondary science exams in the state were over.

More than 4000 students had taken to Twitter on Sunday demanding postponement of the examination. They also observed a day-long hunger strike to press for the demand.