JEE Main 2020: West Bengal boy cycles 75 km for 6 hours to appear for exam

While 75 percent of Candidates in West Bengal did not appear for JEE Main 2020, a 19-year-old boy cycled 75 km for six hours to reach the exam centre on September 3. The 9-year-old boy, Diganta Mondal, from Gosaba in Sunderbans did not want to miss the exam due to unavailability of the public transport and resort to cycle instead accompanied by his father, who is a carpenter by profession. Mondal and his father reached the centre located in Salt Lake Sector V after more than two hours of additional travel on public transport, according reports. 

The duo first crossed the Bidyadhari river on a boat, then reportedly cycled on two separate bicycles to Piyali village in Sout 24 Parganas to a relative’s house. After spending a night there, the father and the son started on September 3 morning for the exam centre. Reports confirm that this time the father decided to ride so that the son could revise his lessons in the back seat and read through the textbooks instead of toiling. After the two reached Sonarpur, they took an auto rickshaw and reached the exam centre by 11 am for the exam scheduled for 3 pm and waited. Diganta was quoted as saying in a report that his son was preparing for over two years now and he had not wanted his child to miss the opportunity despite coronavirus. He also revealed that his son had qualified the higher secondary exam with 85% marks and was a bright child, highlighting the importance of his son to appear in the exam. 

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Students in "great trouble"

On September 3, the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said in a PTI report that at least 75 per cent of JEE-Main candidates in the state could not appear for the exam held on September 1 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She further launched an attack on the centre, saying, Centre's "ego" was responsible for it despite the fact that there was an acute shortage of transport. West Bengal CM had been against the Centre's decision to hold JEE-Main and the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) undergraduate exams. "Our students are in great trouble. So many of them were not able to attempt JEE. That's why we had requested the central government to appeal to the Supreme Court or review the matter again so that students are not deprived,” she was quoted by PTI as saying. 

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