NEET-UG results reveal high scorer clusters at Rajkot and Sikar exam centres

The National Testing Agency (NTA) on Saturday, 20 July released city- and centre-wise results of medical entrance exam NEET-UG which is under the scanner over alleged irregularities including paper leak.

An analysis of data indicated that while the candidates who allegedly benefitted from the paper leak and other irregularities have not done well, some centres have a high concentration of well-performing students.

NTA officials did not respond to queries about a few centres witnessing high concentration of well-performing students.

The voluminous result data of over 32 lakh candidates from 4,750 centres was not released in a cumulative format but in a drop-down menu for each centre. The data was released on the direction of the Supreme Court which is hearing several petitions over the alleged irregularities as lakhs of aspirants await a final verdict on fate of the exam.

The performance of the candidates from the centres under the scanner -- such as Oasis School, Hazaribagh, Jharkhand; Hardayal Public School, Jhajjar, Haryana; Jay Jalaram International School in Godhra, Gujarat -- were comparatively much below par.

According to an analysis of the data released by the NTA, some centers have a high concentration of high scorers. For instance, more than 240 candidates at a centre at School of Engineering, RK University, in Gujarat's Rajkot have scored above 600 marks with 12 of them above getting 700 out of 720 marks.

Similarly, in Rajasthan’s Sikar, Mangal Chand Didwaniya Vidya Mandir centre, four students scored more than 700 marks, 45 scored above 650 marks, and 115 students scored above 600 marks. In another centre in Sikar, Aravali Public School, 90 students scored over 600 marks. Sikar is a budding coaching hub for NEET-UG.

The marks of 83 from another centre in Sikar was also above 600 but below 700.

Over 27,000 candidates appeared at exam centres in Sikar out of which over 4,200 have scored above 600 and over 2,000 have shared above 450.

In all, there are 30,204 students who scored 650 and above – 1.3 percent of the 23.22 lakh candidates nationwide. Over 79,500 candidates have scored above 600. These candidates would have ranks in the top 30,000 and a chance at seats in government medical colleges. Of this set, examinees from Sikar alone will have a chance to claim 2,037 seats.

Forty-five candidates of the Model School centre in Haryana' Rohtak scored more than 600 marks, while among those who took the NEET-UG in Lucknow's SDSN Mahavidyalaya centre, more than 45 scored above 600. The scores of these students at these centres was below the 700-mark.

Also, no NEET-UG candidate has scored above 682 in the revised results for the Hardayal Public School centre in Haryana's Jhajjar that was under the scanner after six aspirants who took the medical entrance exam there on May 5 got 720 out of 720.

In Bihar's Patna, at AN College center, 29 students scored above 650 while at Holy Mission Secondary School, 21 were 650+ scores and two secured 700 marks.

However, the score of candidates from the centres where anomalies were reported earlier remained low. For example, the principal of Oasis School in Jharkhand's Hazaribagh has been arrested in relation to the NEET exam. Only five of 701 candidates at the centre (0.71 per cent) ended in the top one per cent at this centre, similar to the 0.66 per cent success rate for Hazaribagh as a whole.

The scores were revised after a retest was ordered by the Supreme Court following allegations of inflation of marks due to grace being awarded. Only 13 candidates of the centre managed to score more than 600 marks.

The NTA has throughout maintained that the leak was a localised affair, and the beneficiaries were already identified and debarred and there is no need for cancellation of the test.

The results of the 5 May exam, which were initially announced on June 4, have been published in this centre-wise format following an order of the top court.

The court will resume hearing the arguments in the matter on July 22 on a batch of pleas seeking cancellation, re-test and a court-monitored probe into the allegations of malpractice in the prestigious exam.

There were 701 candidates from the centre in Oasis School in Hazaribagh, the epicentre of the alleged leak, of which no one scored 700 or above, which the number in the cohort of 650-699 was 7 and there are another 12 aspirants in the mark-range of 600-649.

While less than one per cent of the candidates scored 650 and above in Oasis school, its counterpart St Xavier's School in the same city registered a little over 2 pc success rate for candidates scoring 650 and above with one scoring over 700.

Just like the Hazaribagh centre, the Godhra one too registered one of the lowest percentage of candidates scoring 600 and above. Of the 1836 candidate none managed to score 700 plus, and 0.4 per cent (7) scored 650 or above.