COIMBATORE: It has barely been a month since CBSE drew widespread criticism for allotting NEET centres for Tamil Nadu students in other states. Now, the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) was under fire for similar reasons. Students, who had applied for the all-India entrance exam for undergraduate agriculture courses, recently found that they had been allotted centres in Ahmedabad and Bhopal. With hardly a week at their disposal to plan for the travel, many candidates were likely to not take up the test.
As much as 15 per cent of seats in undergraduate agriculture courses were filled based on the AIEEE UG, conducted by ICAR. While the ICAR had announced that hall tickets would be available for download on the website on June 15, candidates were able to access it only on June 18. That was when quite a few of them found that they would be writing the test in north India.
When Vimala Bharathi, of Sowripalayam, found that her son Gowtham Bharathi R was assigned the centre in Ahmedabad, she tried getting more information through the helpline numbers. However, that was of little help. “We have now sent a mail to ICAR and are awaiting a reply,” she said. While applying online, they had opted for Coimbatore, Salem or Chennai as the preferred centres.
“Unless Gowtham is allotted a centre in Tamil Nadu, we have no choice but to skip the exam,” she added.
Gowtham had written to ICAR last year too about a similar grievance and was re-allotted a centre in Kavundampalayam.