In a major development, the National Testing Agency (NTA) on Tuesday (25 August) announced that the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) and National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) will be held as scheduled, reports Hindustan Times.

The decision by NTA comes despite growing calls from students across the country to postpone the JEE and NEET examinations in the view of COVID-19 pandemic. With yesterday's announcement by NTA, it is clear that the JEE will be held as planned from 1-6 September, and NEET on 13 September.

However, it should be noted that taking note of the concerns of the student community, the NTA has issued a fresh set of guidelines under which the examinations will be conducted. Also, the total number of examination centres and shifts have been increased significantly.

For the JEE (Main) examination, the total number of centres have been increased from 570 to 660 while for NEET, the number has been increased from 2,546 to 3,843.

For JEE (Mains), the number of shifts per day has been raised from eight to 12. As a result, the number of candidates appearing for the examination per shift has been reduced from earlier 1.32 lakh to 85,000.

Also, the students will be seated in alternate seats in case of JEE (Mains), while in the case of NEET, the number of candidates per room has been halved from 24 to 12.

NTA has also mandated a staggered entry and exit for candidates to ensure social distancing outside the examination halls.