Srinagar: The maiden common entrance test for paramedical courses scheduled in April has been delayed as the government has failed to finalise the eligibility criteria for appearing in the examination.
The J&K Board of Professional Entrance Examinations (BOPEE) had scheduled the maiden common entrance test for admission to various paramedical courses for academic session 2020-21 on April 5.
Last week a notification issued by the BOPEE, however, said that the invitation of online application forms from eligible candidates for the entrance test had been delayed as the information sought by the board regarding eligibility and other conditions for appearing in the test were still awaited from the J&K government.
It said that the notification regarding the invitation of online application forms for appearing in the entrance test shall be issued separately by the board.
The BOPEE had on September 2 last year requested the government to provide the details of the paramedical courses, the colleges, which offered the courses along with their intake capacity, basic qualification and upper and lower age limit for each paramedical course, reservation policy in government colleges and the schedule of admissions to enable it to conduct the entrance test.
In July last year, the then J&K government decided to centralize merit-based admissions to the paramedical courses through an entrance test to be conducted by the BOPEE.
The then State Administrative Council also abolished the 20 percent discretionary quota in the admissions which would earlier be filled on nomination basis to be made by the Chief Minister and Minister for Health & Medical Education.
The admissions to B Sc/M Sc Nursing, post B Sc Nursing, B Pharmacy and other paramedical courses offered by government and private institutes affiliated with University of Kashmir, University of Jammu, Sheri Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences Soura and other deemed universities, were until last year made by the individual institutes on the basis of merit obtained in Matriculation and class 12.
Controller of Examinations at BOPEE, Dr Sunil Gupta said that the entrance test had been delayed as the government was yet to make clear whether only the candidates from the union territory of J&K would be eligible for the examination or those across India as well.

Irshad Khan