Bhubaneswar: Taking note of the poor turnout of the candidates from Odisha in the online registration for the JEE Main examination scheduled on April 2 next year as Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has made Aadhaar card mandatory for students at the time of their registration, the state government has requested the CBSE chairperson for extension of the last date of submission of application form up to January 20 to enable the aspiring candidates to make online registration.
In a letter to CBSE chairperson Rajesh Kumar Chaturvedi on Friday, commissioner-cum-secretary, Skill Development and Technical Education, Sanjay Kumar Singh has said as for the first time, the validation of Aadhaar number is made mandatory for the JEE Main candidates, it is observed that this year online registration is very poor compared to the previous years. As compared to the last year where 49,000 students had registered for this examination, this year only 18,873 candidates have registered till date
“In view of the above, the last date of submission of application form is required to be extended to facilitate enrollment of the candidates for Aadhaar so that along with the candidates who will get their Aadhaar number, others who had previously enrolled under Aadhaar, but need corrections, can also get time to rectify their database. As a result, more number of candidates will be able to register for the JEE Main,” Singh pointed out.
Asked about the allegations made by the students before the media that the district administrations are not cooperating in providing Aadhaar card to them and whether his department will monitor this case, Singh said the Aadhaar registration is being monitored at the top level by the chief secretary who had a review meeting on this issue today.
“Besides, we all are trying to ensure that the students will have their Aadhaar registration without any hassles. There has been much progress in this matter. We are now planning to set up Aadhaar camps in schools so that the number of Aadhaar registration of the students can be increased substantially,” he noted.