NEET-UG re-exam to see unprecedented security measures, says NTA chief

With the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) 2026 re-examination set to be held on June 21, the National Testing Agency (NTA) Director General Abhishek Singh on June 16 asserted that paramilitary forces as well as the Air Force are being used to ensure the highest order of security measures, in the history of the organisation, for a fool-proof examination following irregularities in the May 3 exam.

In an interaction with IANS, Abhishek Singh said: "We have ensured complete security in all our processes -- right from the stage of making the question papers to translation into 12 Indian languages, to printing, packaging and movement. We have ensured the highest order of security, much more than what has ever been done in the history of NTA, to ensure that the entire process is safe, secure and does not have any possibilities of malpractice."

"We are using paramilitary forces, the Indian Air Force, police, 100 per cent CCTV surveillance, GPS tracking, and keeping a close watch on all the people who are involved in the examination process, so that nobody can do anything which can compromise the integrity of the examination," he added.

The NTA Chief highlighted that the Air Force is being utilised for logistics because the timeframe for conducting the examination is very short.

"It required ensuring that we compress the time it takes to move the exam papers. Normally, it takes around five months to conduct this (NEET-UG) examination. This time, we are doing it within 37 days so that the academic cycles and sessions don't get impacted," he added.

About the temporary ban on Telegram till June 22, the NTA Chief said: "We have acted against more than 200 Telegram channels. What we found is that the same channels change the names from one examination to the other. Not only examinations, the same channels have been used for pornography, child sexual abuse, drug abuse, crypto scams, and investment scams."

Abhishek Singh emphasised that same perpetrators carry out such acts by changing the name of the group and more often than not people fall for it.

"It is more of a cybercrime than any examination-related matter," he noted.

Further explaining the misuse of the online application Telegram, the NTA Chief said: "Telegram also had a feature where one could change the content of an earlier post without altering the timestamp.

For example, on May 3 we found a Telegram channel saying that they had access to the main question paper on May 1, showing videos of a chat in which the actual question paper was shown. Upon investigation, we found that the video was altered by using the actual question paper of a student in Kashmir's Anantnag."

"In order to ensure the integrity of the examination, we have requested Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to block access to Telegram in India till June 22," he added.

"Except for the headline, no changes have been made to the story, as it has been sourced from IANS."