Kolkata Metro specials and more than 2500 buses on road for NEET examinees – Hindustan Times

The Kolkata Metro would run 79 special trains on Sunday for candidates appearing for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET). Apart from the metro, the state transport corporations have planned to run more than 2,500 buses across the state for the candidates.

Many students accompanied by their guardians would be coming down to Kolkata from far flung areas to appear for the exam.

“The special trains would operate from 10 am to 7 pm. Candidates would have to show their admit cards at the gates to enter the stations. Guardians can accompany them,” said a metro spokesperson.

More than 77,000 candidates are expected to appear for the NEET exam in West Bengal across 189 centres in nine zones. Around 30,000 are expected to appear at centres in the Kolkata zone. Several examinees are headed to Kolkata from different districts of the state.

“The three state-run corporations would run more than 2500 buses across the state. Besides this, the private bus associations, taxi and auto associations have also been requested to operate their vehicles in full strength. The app cabs would also be plying,” said a senior official of the state transport department.

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Many candidates already reached the city on Saturday to avoid inconvenience while a few others are putting up in hotels and guest houses since Thursday as the Mamata Bnaerjee administration had earlier declared a lockdown on Friday and Saturday.

“At least four rooms in my guest house had bookings since Thursday. Guests have already been put up in three of them, while one booking was cancelled. They are all NEET examinees and have their exam centres in Salt Lake,” said Samir Dutta of Manorama Guest House in sector V of Salt Lake

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The state government, however, later cancelled the lockdown on September 12, keeping in mind the inconvenience that students might face. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee had earlier said that 75% of the candidates failed to appear in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) on the first day on September 1 due to the pandemic situation.