New Delhi: Hearing petitions from NEET-UG 2025 applicants from Indore, who claimed they had to take the exam by candlelight due to a power cut at their centre, the Madhya Pradesh High Court pulled up the National Testing Agency (NTA) last month for “failing to provide proper conditions” for candidates.
This is the second consecutive year the agency has faced criticism over the conduct of the country’s biggest medical entrance exam, after last year’s massive controversy involving alleged paper leaks and irregularities.
During the 16 May hearing, the high court put the results of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test on hold. The same day, the Madras High Court also barred NTA from releasing the results, following a petition by some students who claimed they were unable to complete the exam due to a power outage at their centres amid rain.
The NTA’s alleged failure to conduct exams smoothly is not limited to NEET-UG. Multiple issues have hindered the conduct of the ongoing Common University Entrance Test for undergraduate admissions (CUET-UG)—a gateway for admissions to over 280 universities in India—including delays at several centres across the country due to server and internet problems.
NTA even had to cancel the examination at many centres because of technical glitches. For instance, the exam at a center in Kashmir had to be cancelled on May 14.
These are just some of the more recent problems that have brought the agency back under scrutiny.
A high-level committee formed by the government last year, headed by former ISRO chief K. Radhakrishnan, had made several recommendations to ensure the smooth and secure conduct of national-level exams. However, with problems being reported again this year, stakeholders say that the core issues remain unresolved.
“Despite some improvements—like using government centres for NEET—problems, such as flawed question papers, technical glitches and poor infrastructure, continue to affect students. Key recommendations—like professional paper-setting, digital trial runs, and accountability mechanisms—are yet to be fully implemented. Without urgent and sincere reforms, the system will keep failing students and undermining trust,” Keshav Agarwal, president of Coaching Federation of India, a national-level consortium of major coaching institutions, told ThePrint.
ThePrint reached out to NTA Director General Pradeep Singh Kharola via email, call and message for a comment on the matter. This report will be updated as and when a response is received.
A senior official at the agency said that this year, government institutions were prioritised as examination centers and security measures were tightened in NEET-UG, in line with the recommendations of the Radhakrishnan Committee report.
“Ninety percent of the centres in NEET-UG this time were government institutes. The agency is also continuously expanding its pool of examiners and observers to avoid repeated assignments at the same centres and to minimize risk of misconduct. It’s not that no steps have been taken towards implementing the committee’s recommendations, but everything takes time,” the official told ThePrint, requesting anonymity.
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Lack of preparedness at exam centres
In its report, the panel had recommended reviewing the preparedness of exam centers and conducting audits to ensure that they were adequately equipped.
However, despite these recommendations, several parents and students reported major issues at their centres.
On May 26, several centres in Bihar put out notices outside their premises ahead of the CUET exam that there would be “undefined delay in the entry” due to technical glitches.
“We reached the exam centre in Pataliputra, Patna at 7.30 am on 26 May with my daughter. Entry was scheduled to begin at 9 am, but due to a technical glitch, it was delayed by 45 minutes. A stampede-like situation arose because of the large crowd that had gathered,” Piyush Kumar, father of a student from Patna, told ThePrint.
Similar cases were reported in the national Capital as well. On the first day of the exam on 13 May, students faced technical and logistical chaos at several centres.
Baisakhi Singh, a student who had appeared for CUET-UG at a centre in Rohini on 13 May, said that the problems began quite early. “They didn’t allow us to enter the centre even after the scheduled time, saying that there was no power. After a delay of almost 30 minutes, we were finally let in. There was no power, no fans. After a long wait, we were eventually taken to the labs and made to sit again. The exam finally began nearly an hour and a half late,” she said. “Why did the NTA switch back to a computerised CUET with this level of unpreparedness?”
After conducting CUET-UG in a computerised format for two years and facing delays due to technical issues, the NTA switched to a hybrid model in 2024, holding pen-and-paper exams for subjects with over one lakh candidates. However, this year, the agency reverted to a fully online mode.
However, a centre superintendent in Delhi said that the issues were temporary and were resolved quickly. “Glitches can happen when technology is involved. In the end, everything was fixed and the exam was conducted. Although, I agree that more robust and glitch-proof systems need to be in place for high-stakes exams like CUET,” the official told ThePrint.
Distant centres, issues in question paper
The Radhakrishnan Committee had strongly recommended setting up test centers in every district to ensure candidates are allotted centers close to their homes. However, this year again, one of the major complaints was the long distance that the students had to travel to reach their assigned centres.
For instance, in Meghalaya, students protested after being allotted exam centres outside the state. This prompted Chief Minister Conrad Kongkal Sangma to meet Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and request his intervention in the matter.
The agency official quoted above acknowledged that the issue of limited CUET centers persists in some states due to the requirement of computers and internet connectivity. “We are working on establishing more such centres, including mobile centers, as recommended by the Radhakrishnan Committee,” the official said. “In case of Meghalaya, more centres have already been identified.”
Similar complaints were reported from several other states, and even Delhi-NCR. Students from Bulandshahr and Meerut had to travel to Noida, while some students based in Noida were allotted centres as far away as Dehradun.
Concerns have also been raised over issues in question papers. For instance, on 19 May, NTA announced the rescheduling of the accountancy CUET-UG exam due to a syllabus discrepancy—a unit that was supposed to be optional had incorrectly been made mandatory. The exam is now set to be reconducted this week.
“The Radhakrishnan Committee had recommended forming an expert pool for the question-making process. What kind of supervision exists to prevent such errors? Now, students have to reappear for the exam,” said Ramesh Jha, a parent from Delhi whose son is retaking the paper.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
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