Congress workers across Punjab today staged protest marches and dharnas against the repeated leaking of the NEET papers and the gross mismanagement prevailing in the CBSE. They also burnt the effigies of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and demanded his (Pradhan’s) dismissal from the government for his repeated failures.
Hundreds of Congress workers joined by hundreds of students and youth, in different places across the state including Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Patiala, Bathinda and other cities and towns participated in the protests. Briefing reporters in Chandigarh, Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring pointed out that 22 lakh students across the country had taken the NEET exam when they found out later that the exam paper had been leaked.
He said that this was for the second time that the NEET paper had been leaked and no action had been taken. “Imagine the trauma of the students when they learn after years of hard work that the paper was leaked and it has been cancelled and they will now have to appear in the exam again”, he noted while condemning the indifference and the insensitivity of the Prime Minister towards the students.
He wondered why the Prime Minister was protecting such an incompetent and inefficient minister like Pradhan. The senior Congress leader demanded that the National Testing Agency (NTA), which has repeatedly failed to conduct the NEET, should be disbanded and there must be a foolproof mechanism to conduct the NEET exams as it concerns the career of lakhs of students across the country.
He also referred to the grave anomalies in the CBSE’s online screen marking (OSM) system, which has been found flawed and faulty. He said that this was because the company, Coempt Eduteck, that has been provided the contract has not enough experience and expertise to conduct such exams.
The PCC president revealed that the Coempt Eduteck had been provided special concessions as rules were tweaked to favour it. He said that the company had been barred earlier by the Telangana government yet the CBSE hired it for the reasons best known to it.
He asked for the reason for special concession to the Coempt Eduteck which is playing with the life and career of the students.