chandigarh 17 students from chandigarh haryana and punjab excelled in the examination of the ntse national talent search exam 2016 conducted by state council of educational research and training purusharth from chandigarh and tarush goyal from punjab bagged the first ranks form their statesabhinav sharma aaron goyal pranjali and siddharth secured the second third fourth and sixth ranks of punjab statefrom haryana mehak arora bagged second rank in the state whereas neel aryan got 17 rank vikrant gupta sukhmanjit singh maan maninder singh harit jaiswal and anirudh singh pal were the other students who cleared the examination from chandigarh punjab haryana and himachal pradeshthe exam was conducted on november 8 2015 on the various exam centers across the different states from chandigarh total 7214 students participated ntse is a flagship programme of ncert which was launched in 1963 for identification of talented students and awarding them with scholarships initially the scheme was known as nstse national science talent search exam and later in the year 1976 apart from basic sciences the scheme was extended to social sciences engineering and medicine every year about 1000 scholarships are awarded after conducting the twolevel written exam the final awards are made on the basis of performance of mental ability test mat and scholastic aptitude test satat the first level every stateut has a specific quota computed proportionately on the basis of the student enrolment at secondary level the candidates selected at the first level through mat and sat and language test undergo a similar test conducted by the ncert at national levelthe awardees studying in sciences social sciences humanities languages commerce vocational studies and fine arts are eligible to receive scholarship up to phd level whereas the awardees studying professional courses in medicines engineering technology management and law are eligible to receive the scholarship up to second degree levelall these students were studying in allen career institute in chandigarh