Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Thursday spoke to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over phone seeking his intervention for the postponement of NEET and JEE (Main) exams scheduled next month in view of the Covid pandemic and the flood havoc in parts of the state.

Naveen’s conversation comes a day after his letter to Union education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ seeking deferment of these exams till normalcy is restored in the pandemic-hit country. Around 90,000 students from Odisha will be taking these exams for admission into medical and other technical courses.

In his missive to the minister, Naveen said that given the situation in the wake of the pandemic it would be unsafe for students to visit the test centres physically. He had also argued that students may face transportation problems considering that the number of centres were very few and several examinees would be coming from far off areas.