A large number of examinees of this year’s joint entrance examinations (JEE) for admission to engineering and medical colleges in the state complained on Tuesday that they had not received their admit cards for the examinations, to be held on May 3 and May 4.

Hundreds of anxious examinees from various parts of the state queued up in front of the office of the state JEE board, on the Bengal Engineering College (Deemed University) campus, at Shibpur, on Tuesday to collect duplicate admit cards. “We are extremely inconvenienced by the board’s delay in sending us our admit cards, specially with the Higher Secondary exams underway,” said an examinee.

“Never in the past had students faced such a problem. Their admit usually reached them at least a month before the JEE dates,” said a guardian, who had come down from North Bengal to collect a duplicate admit card for his son.

Board sources said a large number of guardians as well as students stood in long queues in front of the board office from early Tuesday morning to collect their duplicate admit cards.

They claimed, however, that the delay was normal and the board had distributed duplicate admit cards earlier, too.

Board official Sudipto Mukherjee said the system of distributing duplicate admit cards has been in practice for a long time as admit cards do not reach a good number of examinees because of postal disorders.

“This year, a larger number of examinees may not have received their admit cards because there were too many holidays last week and the week before, when the postal department was closed and there had been no transaction of mail,” said Mukherjee. Many of the examinees are likely to get their admit cards by this week. Mukherjee said the board office will stay open on weekdays till the examinations so students can collect duplicate admit cards.