Students stranded in exam coaching city due to lockdown

Hundreds of university and college students are stranded in different parts of India, waiting to return to their homes. The government ordered a countrywide lockdown for 21 days on 24 March to contain the spread of the coronavirus, and on 14 April extended it until 3 May.

India has witnessed as many as 20,471 positive cases and 652 deaths from the virus as of 22 April, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

With the lockdown extension, students from all over the country are stuck in Rajasthan’s education and coaching hub, Kota, as some state governments argue over special treatment for the students compared to migrant workers, many of whom are on the move, often on foot, as they seek to return home after their workplaces closed during the lockdown.

Many students who returned to India from abroad – large numbers were evacuated from China, Italy, Iran, Malaysia and elsewhere on special planes sent by the Indian government – are still unable to reach their places of origin. Many are stuck in New Delhi where they were quarantined on return and now cannot travel because of the continued lockdown.

In Kota, Rajasthan, students were preparing for medical, engineering and other highly competitive university entrance examinations as the city is known for its coaching centres which attract students from all over the country. Many live in ‘paying guest’ accommodations or hostels in Kota but educational institutions and coaching centres all over India were closed after the lockdown was imposed on 14 March.

Kota’s coaching centres closed as early as 14 March after the Rajasthan state government issued an advisory against holding of classes as a precautionary measure against COVID-19.

Pradip Sharma came from Northern Bihar state’s Aurangabad district to prepare for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) – the engineering entrance examination conducted for admission to various engineering colleges and prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). But after the lockdown, the Kota coaching centre where he was studying was closed.

Sharma, who lives in a hostel, says he feels insecure in Kota as the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise in the city and he wants to return to his home state. The city of one million has so far reported more than 70 COVID-19 cases.

Sharma said: “We are stuck in Kota. There are about 25,000 students from all over India staying in Kota. They now want to return to their homes,” he said, noting that “initially, there was alarm among students as they were concerned about the break in their studies” .

Awantika Parmar, from Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior district, came to Kota to prepare for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for entry to undergraduate medical and dental degrees in government or private medical colleges.

Parmar said: “Most of the students have lost the impetus of preparation for competitive exams, although some of the coaching centres have started online classes and there is a high probability that the coaching classes will not resume even after the current lockdown ends on 3 May.”

Students cannot have precedence over migrant workers

Sunil Rajput, another student from Bihar, said that with the lockdown extended until 3 May, most students in Kota now want to return to their homes as soon as possible. “It is not clear when classes would resume and our parents are worried about us,” he said.

Rajput said while several state governments, including India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, sent buses to Kota to return students to their respective states and reach their home districts, the Bihar government has said it would not bring its students back from Kota, leaving students flummoxed.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said it would be unfair to bring the students back as poor migrant workers are not being permitted to move in the same way after losing their jobs in other states. State borders have been sealed and train and bus services are at a standstill.

Tens of millions of migrant workers have been affected by the lockdowns in India and are attempting to return to their home regions.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said the states of Madhya Pradesh, Bengal, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and Assam are ready to take their students back from Kota. Gehlot said the central government has cleared the move, which has been opposed by Bihar government. Bihar has among the largest numbers of its people working outside the state.

Students stranded in major cities

Besides Kota, students are also stuck in several other big cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Kanpur, Lucknow and Kolkata as coaching centres shut down.

According to some media reports, the National Testing Agency will conduct JEE Main and NEET exams in the second or third week of June but there has been no official announcement so far.

Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ said the JEE Main could be conducted in June. The ministry was conferring with exam boards, IITs, and other agencies engaged in logistical operations of JEE and NEET before declaring the next dates.

There are also a large number of students evacuated to Delhi from overseas who are unable to get home.

Vaibhav Purohit, a postgraduate student in Genoa, Italy, reached New Delhi on 15 March, and was then transferred to a quarantine camp set up by the Indo-Tibetan border police in Chawla on the outskirts of Delhi.

He stayed in quarantine for 14 days and tested negative for COVID-19. Despite testing negative again on 31 March, he was kept in quarantine “as a precaution”, but by then the Indian government had declared the lockdown.

"I spent 31 days in quarantine. Then I decided to move to my home town. But because of the lockdown announced by the government, I could not leave.”