Five visually impaired students of the Himachal Pradesh University (HPU) have cracked the National Eligibility Test (NET), an exam to determine eligibility for assistant professors and junior research fellowships, a varsity official said today.

One of them to clear the test is budding singer Muskan Thakur, who was declared as a “youth icon” of the election commission for the last year’s state assembly election.

This is for the first time that five visually impaired students of the university have cleared the UGC-NET 2018, the results of which were declared yesterday, said Professor Ajai Srivastava, the HPU nodal officer for disability affairs.

Apart from Muskan (music), the others who qualified are Anuj Kumar (economics); Vinod Sharma and Jasbir Singh Lubana (political science); and Ajai Kumar (history); along with another differently abled student, Priyanka Thakur (law), he said.

The professor said over 50 differently-abled, including 12 visually impaired students, were studying in the university.

All such students are getting the free education since 2015, following court orders on public interest litigation (PIL), he added.

The 7th UGC NET examination was conducted by CBSE on July 8, 2018, across 91 cities in the country.

The examination was conducted in 84 different subjects. A total number of 11, 48, 235 candidates registered for this exam.

The number was the largest among the past examination of UGC NET.

There were 2082 examination centres across the country. A total number of 2854 observers and 675 Board’s official were deputed at these centres to oversee the smooth and fair conduct of the examination.

The total number of candidates appeared in both papers are 859498.

The number of candidates qualified for eligibility for the assistant professor (this includes candidates qualified for JRF also) is 55872.

Whereas, the candidates qualified for JRF and eligible for assistant professor both are 3929.

While the CBSE conducted the exam on July 8 this year, the online registration process started on March 6, 2018.

As per the UGC policy, 6% of those candidates who appear in both the papers and obtain minimum qualifying marks in aggregate of both papers are declared NET qualified.

The certificates to the qualified candidates will be issued by UGC.

The newly-formed National Testing Agency (NTA) will conduct the UGC NET exam to be held in December this year.