“Website, all portals fully secure”, Says NTA amid irregularities allegations

New Delhi| June, 23 : Amid allegations of irregularities in the conduct of entrance examinations, the National Testing Agency (NTA) claimed on Sunday that its website and all its web portals are fully secure.
The NTA further dismissed the allegations of the portals being compromised, calling them “wrong and misleading.”
“NTA website and all its web portals are fully secure. Any information that has been compromised and hacked is wrong and misleading,” the NTA said in a post on X. The NTA is facing criticism over alleged irregularities in the conduct of National Eligibility-Cum-Entrance-Test (NEET) (UG) Examination 2024. This has led to an uproar across the country, with the opposition demanding to scrap the testing agency. An unprecedented 67 candidates achieved a perfect score of 720 marks out of 720, which added to the concerns. Amid the NEET irregularities allegations, the Centre postponed the NEET-PG exam a day ahead of its postponed date and cancelled the UGC-NET exam conducted on June 18.
Following protests, the Centre, earlier in the day, removed the Director General of the NTA and the formed a high-level committee of experts to ensure transparency in the examinations. The Government shunted out National Testing Agency (NTA) DG Subodh Kumar Singh and placed him on ‘compulsory wait’ in DoPT. Pradeep Singh Kharola has been appointed as the new DG of the NTA. The high-level committee of experts led by Dr K Radhakrishnan, former chairman of ISRO, IIT Kanpur include Dr Randeep Guleria, former Director, AIIMS and academicians like Aditya Mittal and Prof Ramamurthy K from the IIT system who have spearheaded reforms to ensure the integrity of the IIT examinations.
The Committee will make recommendations on reforms in the mechanism of the examination process, improvements in data security protocols, and the structure and functioning of the NTA. Also, earlier in the day, the Central Bureau of Investigation registered a criminal case based on a written complaint from the Director of the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education over the NEET irregularities. As per the agency’s FIR, certain “isolated incidents” occurred in a few states during the conduct of the NEET (UG) 2024 examination which was held on May 5, 2024. Special teams have been formed by the CBI to investigate the matter.