Why in news?

Nine days after nearly 22 lakh students appeared for the NEET medical entrance exam, the National Testing Agency (NTA) announced that the examination had been compromised and ordered a re-test.

The decision triggered nationwide outrage among aspirants and parents, raising serious concerns about examination integrity and administrative accountability.

The Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) has approached the Supreme Court, demanding either major structural reforms in NTA or its replacement.

What’s in Today’s Article?

• NEET’s History of Controversies
• Why NTA’s ‘Zero Error’ Promise Failed
• What the Radhakrishnan Panel Recommended?

NEET’s History of Controversies

• The decision to conduct a re-test for nearly 22 lakh NEET aspirants is unprecedented, but concerns over exam integrity and paper leaks have surfaced before.
• The 2024 Result Controversy
  • In 2024, NEET results triggered major controversy when:
    • 67 of the top 100 candidates scored full marks,
    • compared to only 2 perfect scorers in 2023, and none in 2022.
  • This led to severe rank inflation, making admissions to top medical colleges far more competitive.
  • In 2024:
    • around 13 lakh students qualified,
    • while only about 1.1 lakh MBBS seats were available across government and private institutions.
  • This intensified pressure and scrutiny over the fairness of the examination process.
  • Subsequent investigations in 2024 revealed allegations that around 155 students may have benefited from leaked question papers.
  • Despite widespread demands from aspirants for a re-examination following the leak controversy, no re-test was conducted at the time, adding to concerns about inconsistency in the response to exam compromises.

Why NTA’s ‘Zero Error’ Promise Failed

• Despite repeated controversies over paper leaks and exam irregularities, the National Testing Agency appears to have struggled to address systemic weaknesses effectively.
• After the 2024 NEET controversy, the then NTA chief was removed, but the agency functioned without a full-time head for over a year, creating concerns about administrative continuity and institutional accountability.
• The ‘Zero Error, Zero Tolerance’ Commitment
  • Under new leadership, NTA promised a strict “Zero Error, Zero Tolerance” approach and claimed robust security measures for NEET-UG 2026, including:
    • sealed handling of confidential materials,
    • GPS-tracked transport with police escorts,
    • CCTV surveillance at exam centres,
    • biometric Aadhaar verification,
    • frisking with metal detectors, and
    • centralised real-time monitoring.
  • The agency also acted against online fraud by blocking numerous Telegram channels allegedly spreading fake question papers and misleading candidates.
• Security Failure Despite Safeguards
  • Despite these extensive precautions, police investigations indicated that a so-called “guess paper” containing a large number of actual exam questions had reportedly circulated well before the exam, exposing major gaps in the system.
  • The controversy suggests that while technological and procedural safeguards were expanded, underlying intelligence, monitoring, and institutional enforcement failures continued to undermine exam integrity.

What the Radhakrishnan Panel Recommended?

• Following the NEET-UG 2024 controversy, the Ministry of Education constituted a high-level committee headed by former ISRO chief K.Radhakrishnan to review examination security and reforms.
• The committee identified the traditional pen-and-paper testing model as a major security vulnerability due to the higher risk of question paper leaks and logistical breaches.
• The panel recommended transitioning NEET to a Computer-Based Testing format, similar to JEE Main, to improve exam security and reduce leak risks.
• It also proposed a Computer-Assisted Secure Pen-and-Paper system, where encrypted question papers would be digitally transmitted to exam centres and printed locally just before the exam.
• Implementation Gaps
  • Despite these recommendations, NTA reportedly continued with conventional paper-based arrangements relying on physical transport, GPS tracking, and police escorts instead of adopting the suggested technological safeguards.
  • NTA leadership cited limited CBT capacity, stating that existing infrastructure can handle only a fraction of NEET candidates in a single day. Expansion efforts through additional computer centres have reportedly not progressed sufficiently.
  • Moving NEET fully online requires broader ministerial approval involving both education and health authorities, and proposals for such a transition have remained pending for years.

Conclusion

The panel’s recommendations highlighted clear structural reforms, but slow implementation and infrastructure limitations appear to have prevented meaningful change.