Ranchi: The State Board of Technical Education (SBTE) has decided to extend the time for filling up the fifth semester polytechnic examination forms for the 2015-18 session by 14 days, following the gherao of state education minister Neera Yadav's residence in Doranda on Monday.

Around 150 students comprising boys and girls from all 51 polytechnic institutes across Jharkhand turned up outside Yadav's residence in Doranda around 11am holding banners and posters and shouting slogans for over two hours before being taken to the SBTE office in Tupudana by Yadav's officials for truce.

Yadav was in Koderma but students, who were protesting under the banner of National Students' Union of India (NSUI), a students' wing of the Congress, claimed that the minister's office had asked them to come to her residence at 11am on Monday for talks.

"When we went there today (Monday), we were informed that the minister wasn't at her house. Therefore we decided to wait for her. Two hours later, one of his assistants made us speak to her over phone. She said she couldn't come. We said we will continue to sit outside her house. After sometime, her office called the SBTE to look into the issue. We were then taken there, and out of the five demands, one was immediately agreed upon," said Indrajit Singh, a NSUI member, who passed MTech from Cambridge Institute of Technology in Ranchi last year.

On their demands, Singh said they wanted an extension of the date for filling up of for forms for fifth semester exams (2015-18 session), a retest of the second semester papers and no arbitrary hike fees in the middle of a session.

"One of the prominent demands include allowing the students to sit for a retest of the second semester exam held in October 2017 as more than 60 per cent students had failed then. There is a provision of a re-exam when 30 per cent or more students fail. Also, in the middle of the session, the SBTE had introduced a rule that if a student fails in six subjects, he/she can't take further exams. We want the rule to be postponed till the new session," Singh said, adding that they have given an ultimatum of 72 hours for the fulfilment of the remaining demands or else they would hit the roads.

SBTE secretary S.V. Sah said the other demands were being looked into.