Amidst the controversy over the inclusion of Gujarati in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), the National Testing Agency (NTA) on Friday clarified that it made paper available only in that state's language as no other state had shown interest in the proposal sent years back in 2013.
"The JEE (Main) Examination started in 2013 with the idea of all states admitting their engineering candidates through JEE (Main). The request was sent to all the states in the year 2013. Only the Gujarat state agreed to admit their candidates in state engineering colleges of Gujarat through JEE (Main) and requested that the JEE (Main) paper be made available in Gujarati language," the press release by NTA read.
According to the release, Maharashtra too had opted for admitting engineering candidates in the state colleges through JEE (Main) and requested to provide the question papers in Marathi and Urdu.
However, as per the release, in 2016 both Gujarat and Maharashtra stopped giving admission to state colleges through JEE (Main).
"However, the translation of JEE (Main) question paper in Gujarati language continued on the request of Gujarat State. None of the other states have approached NTA to provide the JEE (Main) question paper in any other Indian National Language", the statement added.
Yesterday, the Department of Higher Education West Bengal had written to the NTA saying that inclusion of Bengali is highly justified when JEE (Main)-2020 question paper will also be in the Gujarati language.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee too had asked for the exams to be conducted in all regional languages, including Bengali.