Students struggle to reach JEE exam centre in Pune due to traffic

Paper 1 (BE/ BTech) of the exam was held on January 22, 23, 24, 28, and the last paper is scheduled to be held on Wednesday. The exam is held in two shifts, morning and afternoon. The Indian Express visited the exam centre on January 24 and 28 to speak to students and parents about the difficulties they faced while arriving at the centre.

The exam centre is located around 1.5km off the Pune-Solapur highway towards the Ramtekdi industrial area, where thousands of students appear in each shift. The road to reach the centre passes through the JCC Colony slum, where a massive number of private vehicles dropping exam takers caused bumper-to-bumper traffic jams. This meant students had to get off their vehicles and walk through the narrow roads to reach the centre on time, adding to stress before an already stressful exam.

An aspirant from Solapur said, “I have walked nearly a kilometer from Ramtekdi road to reach the centre because of heavy traffic.” Similarly, Pratyusha Naik, another aspirant, said, “Due to traffic, my parents parked the car away from the centre so we had to walk around 500-600 metres to arrive at the centre.”

Vijay Pawar, who had come to drop a relative for the exam, said, “I was stuck for at least 30-45 minutes in the traffic. Then I had to park my vehicle and walk to the centre. They should block the movement of other vehicles when the exam is going on.”

A official of the National Testing Agency at the venue said, “Traffic is not our concern. We are responsible for an error-free and smooth conduct of examination. Along with everyone else, we too are facing the problem of increased traffic.”

Deputy Commissioner of Police (traffic) Amol Zende told The Indian Express that more traffic personnel would be deployed for the last day of Paper 1 and for the upcoming Paper 2 to ensure better traffic flow.