Telangana Postponed all Entrances Exams Due to COVID-19
The Telangana government on Tuesday announced the postponement of all the entrance examinations for admission into various courses in the state scheduled to commence from Wednesday.
The government submitted an affidavit to this effect in the state high court, which was hearing a public interest litigation petition filed by National Students Union of India (NSUI) Telangana unit president Venkat Balmoor.
In its affidavit, the state government said the decision to postpone all entrance tests was taken in the wake of the proposal to reimpose complete lockdown in Hyderabad and surrounding districts due to growing number of positive cases for Covid-19.
The entrance tests – Engineering, Agriculture and Medical Entrance Test (EAMCET), POLYCET (entrance for polytechnic courses), Integrated Common Entrance Test (ICET for admission into MBA and MCA courses), ECET (Engineering Entrance Test meant for lateral entry for polytechnic students into engineering courses), PGCET (common entrance for post-graduate courses in various universities), PECET (entrance test for physical education courses), LAWCET (common entrance test for admission into law colleges) and EDCET (common entrance test for admission into education colleges) were originally scheduled to be held from July 1.
In the PIL filed before the high court on June 9, Venkat questioned the proposal to conduct the entrance tests at a time when the intensity of Covid-19 is at its peak in the state.
The high court questioned as to how it could hear the arguments at a time when there are reports that the government was planning to re-impose lockdown in Hyderabad and surrounding districts to contain the virus spread.
The high court asked the government whether there were any plans to impose lockdown in the state. The advocate general, appearing for the state government sought some time till afternoon to submit the affidavit.
Later in the afternoon, the government submitted the affidavit saying all the examinations have indefinitely been postponed.
The state government had already canceled the Class 10 examinations and declared all the students passed based on their internal assessment marks.