Shillong, May 15: Chaos was witnessed during the CUET UG 2024 examination which was held at NEHU here on Wednesday.
Around six students fainted after prolonged standing among a crowd of hundreds of students who had gathered outside the Arts cluster classrooms waiting to enter to appear for the English subject resulting in a stampede.
It was also informed that students who fainted had to rush for medical attention. There was utter confusion since there was no display of the roll numbers of the rooms where the students had to sit for their examination.
NEHU has set up two examination centres in the Arts and Science cluster classrooms. But in the admit card issued by the National Testing Agency (NTA) it was mentioned only cluster classrooms which led to the confusion among students.
There was no such problem during the Chemistry paper which was held earlier in the day since only around 100 students had appeared.
However, NEHU could not manage the situation as there were nearly 3700 students who appeared for the English subject.
Not only this, the examination which was supposed to be held at 3pm was delayed by more than two hours as the biometric system was not working.
NEHU had to get the clearance from the NTA authority in Delhi to allow students to appear English paper examination without biometric system.
Finally, NEHU was given clearance to hold the examination without mandatory biometric registration. Students finally enter the examination room at around 5.15 pm.
The students who are appearing for the general studies subject are sitting for the examination at 7.30 pm.
Meanwhile, the lack of preparedness on the part of the university to host the examination could be clearly witnessed as there was no security to manage the crowd.
NEHU registrar, retired Colonel Omkar Singh has attributed the delay to the non-functioning or mal functioning of the biometric system.