The committee noted that in 2024 alone, of the 14 competitive examinations conducted by the NTA, at least five faced major issues
Nationwide protests erupt as NEET-UG 2026 integrity crumbles. Image/ANI
Exactly six months before the National Testing Agency was forced to cancel the country-wide NEET examination due to a leak, a parliamentary panel had slammed the working of the NTA and had recommended that the agency should “quickly get their act together”, but it was all in vain.
“The NTA’s performance in the last year has not inspired much confidence,” said the report presented to Parliament on December 12 last year. “The Committee therefore recommends that NTA needs to quickly get their act together so that such instances, which otherwise are fully avoidable, do not occur in future.” Exactly six months later, the NTA has been rocked by another paper leak in the NEET exam that has left 23 lakh students affected.
The committee has noted that in 2024 alone, of the 14 competitive examinations conducted by the NTA, at least five faced major issues. “As a result, three examinations, viz. UGC-NET, CSIR-NET and NEET-PG had to be postponed, one examination, viz. NEET-UG, saw instances of paper leaks, and one examination, CUET (UG/PG), saw its results postponed. In JEE Main 2025, held in January 2025, at least 12 questions had to be withdrawn due to errors noted in the final answer key of the engineering entrance exam,” it said.
Shockingly, the committee had noted that several firms involved in paper setting, administration, and correction have been blacklisted by one organisation/state government, but that is not impeding their securing of contracts from other states or organisations.
“The Committee is of the view that such blacklisted firms must not be engaged for any entrance test by the NTA or the State Governments. The Committee therefore recommends that the Department should compile a nationwide list of blacklisted firms along with the persons or entities that constitute such firms so as to prevent such firms/persons/entities from securing future contracts and bring further clarity in this regard,” the report said.
It is not known if the NTA had followed up on this advice at all.
The committee report also noted that the NTA collected an estimated Rs 3,512.98 crore while it has spent Rs 3,064.77 crore on the conduct of examinations, thereby creating a surplus of Rs 448 crore in the last six years. “The Committee recommends that this corpus should be used to build the agency’s capabilities to conduct tests itself, or to strengthen regulatory and monitoring capabilities for its vendors,” the report said. Again, it is not clear if the NTA has utilised the corpus for the recommended purpose.
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