CHENNAI: Social activists and entrepreneurs running coaching centres for the common entrance tests for medical aspirants have begun work on travel and lodging arrangements for hundreds of students required to travel out of the state for exams after a litigation that went up to the Supreme Court resulted in an eleventh-hour realisation that some have to pack their bags.Sindhu Raam, chief executive officer of Phoenix NEET Academy, said calls and enquiries started pouring in early on Friday. The challenge ahead was to get seats in buses leaving from the hinterland: “We have students not from the suburban areas of Thiruvarur, Nagapattinam, Madurai, Tiruchengode, and many other areas. It is a real logistical challenge to get them to Ernakulam by Sunday.” The academy has arranged for the end-to-end commute for only seven students so far, revealing how difficult it is in a time-constrained situation for those willing to help to reach out.Narayanan Natarajan, a activist who also runs a coaching centre, had put the message on social media on the behalf of All India Professionals Congress (AIPC) that he was willing to help. “When I spoke with the parents, I came to know that most of them have already planned carpooling.”AIPC has arranged for accommodations for four students in Ernakulam in Kerala In a post-noon announcement on Friday after an uproar about the inconvenience, the state government announced free train tickets and a sum of Rs. 1,000 an aspirant.While the majority of students posted for locations in other states need to travel to Ernakulam, there have been reports of Visakhapatnam and even Rajasthan. Pradeep Yadav, the school education secretary, said: “We had gotten in touch with over 9,000 students with government, and government-aided schools. Only 40 have them have informed us of having to go to other states for NEET. As for, the private school students, we do not have any data.”The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered in a case filed by the Central Board of Secondary Education that the board to conduct the examinations without changes to location centres in view of very little time. The board had moved the Supreme Court with a Special Leave Petition after the Madras High Court had directed it to allocate examination centres “nearby to their place of residence, or adjacent districts or at least within the state of Tamil Nadu .”In the Special Leave Petition filed by CBSE , seen by ET, the board cites paucity of time for not being able to allocate local centres: "There was no time to arrange for more centres in Tamil Nadu. However, in all other states, candidates have been accommodated as per their choices."