Additional Chief Secretary, Health and Family Welfare, P K Mohapatra has written a letter in this regard to the NTA Director-General, Vineet Joshi.

In his letter, Mohapatra has asked NTA to consider the state's proposal of setting up one exam center in each of the 30 districts of the state.

The All India NEET UG Examination is conducted by the NTA for admission to MBBS/BDS courses and other undergraduate medical courses in approved/recognized Medical/Dental and other Colleges/ Institutes in India.

On 12 March, 2021, NTA had announced that it will conduct the NEET entrance exam in pen and paper mode on August 1, 2021.

The NTA has notified to set up examination centers in seven urban pockets of Odisha namely in Angul, Balasore, Berhampur, Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Rourkela, and Sambalpur.

According to a PTI report, Mohapatra has drawn Joshi's attention towards the covid restrictions and the difficulties the students might face while going to physically appear for NEET-UG 2021 in the limited number of examination centers approved for the state. Further, due to frequent lockdown and shutdown imposed by different district administrations the transportation system is very often disrupted making the movement of student's further worse, Mohapatra mentioned in the letter.

"Odisha has got vast tribal pockets having geographically inaccessible areas and far away from the urban centers of the state for which the students of this state maybe deprived of appearing in the NEET UG as they will have to move long distance for appearing the test," the letter said

Additional Chief Secretary ( Health and Family Welfare )also reminded the NTA about the March 9, 2021 meeting and the discussion and suggestions made in the meeting where the state government had raised such an issue.