Adequate transportation will be made available for TET candidates: Transport Min

: Transport department will ensure adequate bus services are made available for the candidates appearing for Teacher Eligibility Test (TET). Apart from the usual services, buses under reserve will also be plied across the state, state Transport minister Snehasis Chakraborty said.

Over three lakh candidates across 773 centres are scheduled to take part in the TET examination which will be held on December 24. Since a Bhagavad Gita chant programme was scheduled at Maidan area on the same day, questions on traffic and vehicle availability were raised at Calcutta High Court seeking the change in exam date.

The matter was heard by Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya who refused to change the date and directed the authorities, including Kolkata Police to ensure that the candidates are able to reach the centres without any trouble. Kolkata has only five centres. The Division Bench had further directed the Transport department to also ensure adequate facilities are provided to the candidates.

Last year, around 2,000 government buses and 34,000 private buses were plied for TET. Despite the exam date falling on a weekend, the operators were instructed to ply buses to its weekday strength to facilitate smooth transportation to the candidates.

The Metro authorities have also decided to provide additional services for the TET exam. Metro services will start from 6:50 am for the convenience of the aspirants and 234 services will be run instead of 130 services over the Blue line. The timing for the last service will remain unchanged.