NEET not clean

It’s inexplicable why edu ministry hasn’t moved to overhaul NTA

Nodal testing body NTA has fragility inbuilt. It is not a statutory body, accountability is iffy, it is highly dependent on contractual employees, and has no watchdog overseeing it.

Given NTA conducts at least 15 national-level exams, its very foundation is weak. These are points that emerge after every paper leak.

Yet, GOI’s ministry of education hasn’t moved decisively. In limbo are youngsters, wound up through their formative years, to sit for various tests. For the 23L medical aspirants this year – is there any guarantee a re-test won’t suffer a similar fate?

Going by the shuffling of feet in both ministry and NTA, this is hardly the last leak. It’s not safe to assume that in 2025, in some corner, question paper wasn’t sold – given experiences of 2021, 2024 and 2026.

It’s more likely no one was caught in the years between. The MO isn’t new, nor have any of the lacunae, identified for years, been plugged.

That’s what raises questions, and eyebrows. First, why weren’t any of the ways to minimise risk of paper leaks – including 101 suggestions by 2024’s Radhakrishnan committee – implemented? Why hasn’t NTA moved to less expensive, obvious and tried-and-tested ways to nullify risk of a paper leak?

The simplest way is to have multiple sets – results normalised during grading. No rocket science. After all, how many would an aspirant buy, when a set costs upwards of ₹10L? Third, why, after sacking NTA chief in 2024, did GOI leave the post without a full-time director, until March 2026? Finally, will insiders be thoroughly probed?

All entrance exams are an industry – coaching, hostels, books, publishers, ed-tech, apps. It’s endless. Add to that the profitable exam mafia. ROI on buying a question paper is huge – if you make the grade, a govt college costs a fraction of private medical study. Even a small leak can change ranks.

Given the stakes, ministry’s go-slow on reforms, despite so many leaks of various NTA-conducted exams, is inexplicable. And it’s mysterious why so many trapdoors remain wide open, when vulnerabilities are fully recorded, as is every weak link in the chain of custody of a NEET paper.

Perhaps the push needed will come from students, who must be compensated for NTA’s failure to conduct an exam, held for years now, fairly.

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