New Delhi: Amid the raging controversy surrounding the NEET UG 2024 results, the cancellation of the UGC NET, and the announcement to postpone the CSIR UGC NET 2024 — all conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) — the Centre Saturday night removed the Chhattisgarh cadre IAS officer Subodh Kumar Singh, the Director General of the NTA, and put him on “compulsory wait”.
P.K. Kharola, former aviation secretary and the current chairman and managing director (CMD) of India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO) has been given the additional charge of NTA DG. The retired 1985 batch Karnataka cadre IAS officer will hold on to the charge till the appointment of a regular incumbent, the ministry of personnel said in an order issued Saturday.
Kharola, who retired as aviation secretary in September 2021 was appointed the ITPO CMD in October 2022. Prior to taking up the charge, he was the chairman of the National Recruitment Agency (NRA), which is mandated to conduct computer-based Common Eligibility Test for recruitment to government jobs.
A senior government official, who wished to not be named, said that Kharola’s experience as NRA chairman could be one of the reasons for giving him the additional charge of DG, NTA.
Subodh Kumar Singh, a Chhattisgarh cadre IAS officer, was appointed to the post of DG of NTA in June 2023. Before that, he was holding the charge of additional secretary in the Department of Food and Public Distribution, under the ministry of consumer affairs, food and public distribution.
Hailing from Uttar Pradesh, Singh had served in the Chhattisgarh CMO between 2009 to 2018 during the tenure of CM Raman Singh of the BJP.
The NTA was established in November 2017 to conduct a range of national-level exams for admission and recruitment in fields such as engineering, medicine, management, and pharmacy. It became operational on 5 September, 2018, and has more than 2,546 centres.
The NEET-UG exam, overseen by the NTA took place on 5 May across 4,750 centres, with approximately 24 lakh candidates participating. Initially slated for 14 June, the results were released ahead of schedule on 4 June due to expedited evaluation processes. Notably, 67 students attained a flawless score of 720, marking a milestone for the NTA. Among them were six students from a centre in Faridabad, Haryana, raising suspicions of potential irregularities.
Following this, UGC NET was cancelled after concerns that the “integrity of the examination may have been compromised”.
Most recently, the NTA Friday announced the postponement of the CSIR UGC NET 2024 “due to unavoidable circumstances as well as logistic issues”.
There have been allegations of UGC NET and CSIR UGC NET papers having been leaked on the darknet.
The education ministry Saturday also notified a seven-member high-level committee, led by former ISRO chairman Dr K. Radhakrishnan, to oversee fair and transparent examinations conducted by the NTA.
With mounting pressure from the Opposition over a series of alleged paper leaks since early this month, the government has been in damage control mode.
Besides setting up a high-level probe committee, the Centre Friday enacted the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024, designed to curb cheating and unfair practices in public examinations and common entrance tests across the country.
The new law imposes stringent penalties. Individuals caught cheating face three to five years imprisonment, while those engaged in organised cheating operations could be sentenced to five to 10 years in prison and fined a minimum of Rs 1 crore.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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