NEW DELHI: Within five hours of the beginning of admit card allocation for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), 6.84 lakh candidates, out of total 15.9 lakh of those registered, downloaded examination hall tickets, said the National Testing Agency (NTA) on Wednesday.
The allocation for admit cards for the entrance test for medical and dental colleges began at 12 noon on Wednesday.
The NTA, under the Union Education ministry, is facing stiff resistance from a large section of students, some state governments and opposition parties for its decisions of going ahead with Joint Entrance Examination (Main) and NEET, despite the Covid-19 pandemic.
While JEE (Main) is scheduled between September 1-6, NEET is set to be held on September 13.
More than 99% of the candidates in each of the two examinations have been allocated their first choice of centres, said the agency.
For NEET 2020, a total of 1,597,433 candidates had registered in November-December and overall, there has been a rise of little over 5% in the registrations as compared to the last year. But Tamil Nadu and Delhi had seen a significant drop in candidates willing to appear in this competitive test.
In a statement issued on Tuesday night, the NTA had said that while the number of examination centres have been increased from 570 to 660 in case of JEE Main, it has gone up to 3843 from 2,546 in case of NEET.
The agency also said that in case of JEE (Main), for which 7.41 lakh out of total 8.58 registered candidates have downloaded admit cards, the number of shifts has been increased from the earlier 8 to 12.
Also, the number of candidates per shift has been reduced from earlier 1.32 lakh to 85,000 now to ensure proper physical distancing.
It also underlined that for NEET, the number of candidates per room has been reduced from earlier 24 to 12 at the examination centres now.