10 MINUTES LATE, A YEAR LOST
"Santosh Kumar Yadav, a resident of Darbhanga in Bihar, travelled for more than 24 hours and changed two buses to cover a 700-odd kilometre distance to reach Kolkata for his National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET). Unfortunately, he was late by 10 minutes.
“Yadav was not allowed to enter the examination centre at a school in Salt Lake, a township located to the east of Kolkata.”
. . . . .
“I pleaded with the authorities but they said I was late. The examination started at 2 pm. I reached the centre around 1.40 pm. The last deadline for entering the centre was 1.30 pm. I lost a year.
“I boarded a bus at Darbhanga at 8 am on Saturday to reach Muzaffarpur. From there I took a bus to Patna but there was a traffic jam on the route and I got delayed by almost six hours.
“I took another bus from Patna at 9 pm. The bus dropped me near Sealdah station (in Kolkata) at 1.06 pm. A taxi brought me to the examination centre.”
. . . . .
“We knew that students would face trouble. The metro railway can carry them within Kolkata but what about those from other districts? Chief minister Mamata Banerjee cancelled the state-wide lockdown on Saturday only to help students travel. But they still faced problems because of the pandemic situation.”