Days after the NEET-UG examination was scrapped over an alleged paper leak, questions are once again being raised over the functioning of the National Testing Agency (NTA), with both a Parliamentary Standing Committee and a Tamil Nadu government-appointed panel having earlier flagged concerns about the body’s structure, accountability and exam processes.
Last Friday, Union Education minister Dharmendra Pradhan announced that NEET-UG would shift to a computer-based test (CBT) format from next year. Until now, the exam has been conducted using the pen-and-paper method.
Parliamentary panel preferred pen-and-paper model
Interestingly, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports had supported pen-and-paper examinations in its 371st Report submitted to Parliament in 2025.
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“Between the two, the Committee supported a greater focus on pen-and-paper examinations given that there are several models of such examinations which have been leak-proof for several years – including the CBSE exams and the UPSC exams. The Committee recommends that the NTA closely study these models and implement the same,” the report stated.
The committee, headed by Congress Rajya Sabha MP Digvijaya Singh, did not completely reject the CBT model. However, it warned that “Pen and paper exams offer more opportunities for paper leaks, while computer-based tests (CBT) can be hacked in a manner that is difficult to detect”. It also recommended that CBT exams be conducted only in government-controlled centres and “never in private centres”.
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Panel questioned NTA’s recent performance
The House panel sharply criticised the NTA’s handling of several national-level exams.
“The Committee reiterates that the NTA’s performance in the last year has not inspired much confidence,” it observed, noting that in 2024 alone, several major examinations faced disruptions, postponements or allegations of paper leaks.
The committee pointed to issues in UGC-NET, CSIR-NET, NEET-PG and CUET, while also highlighting errors in JEE Main 2025.
“In JEE Main 2025 held in January 2025, at least 12 questions had to be withdrawn due to errors noted in the final answer key of the engineering entrance exam,” the panel noted.
It also urged the government to create a nationwide blacklist of firms involved in exam-related work after concerns that blacklisted vendors were still securing contracts in different states.
Tamil Nadu panel sought NTA’s disbanding
A separate high-level Tamil Nadu committee headed by retired Supreme Court judge Justice Kurian Joseph went further, recommending that the NTA be disbanded altogether.
The panel argued that “Decisions with nationwide consequences affecting millions of students are taken by a small coterie, with no independent oversight and no statutory accountability to Parliament”.
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It also raised concerns about the agency’s staffing structure and dependence on outsourced workers and contractors for sensitive functions such as question paper printing, logistics and data handling.
Calling the NTA a “single-point-failure risk”, the panel said the consequences became visible during the controversies surrounding NEET-UG, UGC-NET and CUET in 2024.
“Even with flawless execution, high-stakes national entrance tests, particularly for undergraduate admissions to State institutions, remain constitutionally undesirable, pedagogically unsound, socially inequitable, and harmful to student well-being,” the Tamil Nadu panel stated.
