Razequl Hasan and Abdus Sami, undergraduate students of Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose College in Calcutta, have dropped the plan of uploading their final-year answer scripts from their homes because of Net connectivity problems.

The two third-year students of mathematics honours reached the campus, off Rabindra Sadan, to take the test and submit the scripts in person within half an hour of the tests in accordance with the UGC directive.

Since tests are not supposed to be held in colleges during the pandemic, Calcutta University decided that colleges would upload questions on their websites and students have to send back scanned answer scripts to colleges within half an hour of the exam.

Purna Chandra Maity, the principal of the college, said he could understand what the students were going through as his ancestral home is in a remote village in East Midnapore district. “Besides, CU had left it to colleges to work out a way in order to meet the UGC guidelines. So, we allowed students to take the exams on the campus.”

Abdus Sami, the son of a scrap dealer, lives in Praduman Chapra village in Bihar’s East Champaran district. He doesn’t have a smartphone. Nor could he ask his father or brother who works in a private farm to buy him one as the family is going through tough times during the pandemic. “The Net connectivity was already weak… it has worsened. I had to request the college to help me out.”

He was among the 21 students who took the test that started at noon in a classroom in the college in Calcutta.

Saturday was the Day 2 of the exams that started on October 1. The exams will end on October 8.

He is staying at a friend’s place in Birati.

Razequl Hasan lives in Naikanda village in Chanchal. Electricity and Net connectivity are erratic in the area. Hasan, the son of a peasant, has a smartphone; but he could not risk banking on it to send scanned answer scripts back to the college. “It is raining incessantly in our place… when it rains, the Net connectivity crashes. I requested principal Maity to let me take the exam from the college and submit the scripts on time.”

He, too, is staying at a friend’s place in Belghoria.

The two are among the 100-odd students who had requested the college authorities to allow them to take the exams on the campus.