Eamcet officials wary of older aspirants
Police asked to verify credentials of ‘suspicious’ candidates in the 20-43 yrs age group
Hyderabad: Hundreds of students, who were born between 1971 and 1994 and are now aged between 43 and 20 years, have applied for Eamcet this year.
Officials are surprised that there are more than 5,000 applicants, aged between 43 and 20 years, who have registered for Eamcet. They have asked the police department to verify their credentials.
With the Eamcet exam witnessing hi-tech copying in the last four years and with recent leak of the PG medical entrance question papers, officials are taking stringent measures to prevent such incidents in Eamcet this year.
Normally, students aged between 16 and 17 years apply for Eamcet as it is meant for students who complete Intermediate by that age and aspire for engineering and medical seats.
However, officials said they cannot prevent any candidate from applying for Eamcet on the grounds of age as there is no upper age limit for the test.
They are, however, clueless as to why candidates aged over 40 years are aiming for engineering and medical seats now.
With a series of exam-related malpractice coming to light of late, officials suspect foul play by these candidates and have sought the help of the police and intelligence departments.
While there are single digit applicants aged between 43 and 39 years, there are double-digit applicants between 38 and 29 years.
There are 119 to 3,057 candidates aged between 28 and 21. The number is significantly higher, from 10,000 to 1.53 lakh, in the age group of 20 and 18 years.
“We have sent the data of these applicants to the police department for verification. It’s not that we are suspecting all these students. This is being done as a precautionary measure to ensure that no untoward incidents occur on the day of the exam. Genuine students will be allowed to appear for the test irrespective of their age,” said Prof. N.V. Ramana Rao, convenor, Eamcet.
Eamcet is scheduled to be held on May 22. Over 3.95 lakh students have registered for the test so far.
Of them, 2.82 lakh are for engineering and 1.12 lakh for medicine.
Students who applied for the test with a penalty of Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000 after the due date, against the original fees of Rs 250 if paid within the due date, are also being verified by the police.