JEE, NEET: Above 17 lakh admit cards downloaded, indicate students interest in exam: Education minister

Above 17 lakh students have already downloaded their admit cards for JEE and NEET, and this shows that the students want the exams to be conducted at any cost, said Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank'.

The minister's comments come in contradiction of the backdrop of a growing choir for postponement of the JEE and NEET exams because of the rise in COVID-19 cases. "National Testing Agency (NTA) officials told me that over 7 lakh candidates have downloaded JEE-Main admit cards while over 10 lakh aspirants have downloaded NEET admit cards. This shows that students want the exams to be held at any cost," Pokhriyal said.

"We have received mails from students and parents who are in favour of holding exams as they have been preparing for the exams from at least two-three years," he further added.

The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) is slated to be held on September 13; engineering entrance exam JEE-Main has been scheduled from September 1-6. Almost 8.58 lakh candidates have registered for Joint Entrance Examination (JEE)–Main and 15.97 lakh students got registered for NEET.

These exams have earlier been postponed twice due to coronavirus pandemic. The JEE-Mains was initially slated to be held from April 7-11 but postponed to July 18-23, NEET-UG was initially planned for May 3, then delayed to July 26. They were postponed again and are now scheduled in September.