Under Fire, Modi Government Changed NTA Boss But Student Agony Continues As Govt Postponed NEET-PG Exams, Hours Before Scheduled

Under fire, the Centre on Saturday has removed the National Testing Agency (NTA) Director General amidst the ongoing NEET, UGC-NET row. DG Subodh Kumar has been replaced with 1985 batch IAS officer Pradeep Singh Kharola. This came within hours of Government forming a high level committee under the former ISRO chief K Radhakrishnan to oversee fair conduct of exams ensuring transparency.

“The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the following: Assignment of additional charge of the post of Director General, National Testing Agency, Ministry of Education to Shri Pradeep Singh Kharola. IAS (KN:85) (Retd), Chairman and Managing Director, India Trade Promotion Organisation till the appointment of a regular incumbent or until further orders, whichever is earlier,” the government notification on Saturday read. 

The new Modi led NDA government soon after taking charge of the office, came under fire as NEET-UG results pointed towards alleged discrepancies, paper leaks and wrongful marking benefitting few. The results concern more than 23 lakh aspirants. Meanwhile, people arrested by Bihar police have admitted to have leaked the papers against money. While the government of India hasn’t cancelled the exams but allowed a CBI probe into it, the Ministry of Education on last Wednesday (June 19) cancelled the UGC-NET exams, a day after more than 11 lakh aspirants appeared for it on Tuesday. The Education Ministry had claimed that their decision was on the basis of inputs from the Union Home Ministry pointing towards a “compromise” with the exam. Now on Saturday, the Government of India, Health Ministry decided to postpone the NEET-PG exams, hours before close to two lakh aspirants were slated to appear of the exam on Sunday (June 23).

The credibility of NTA had thus taken a massive hit. “Taking into consideration the recent incidents of allegations regarding the integrity of certain competitive exams, the ministry of Health has decided to undertake a thorough assessment of the robustness of processes of the NEET-PG entrance exam, conducted by the National Board of Examination for medical students. It has accordingly been decided, as precautionary measure, to postpone the NEET-PG Entrance Examination, scheduled to be held tomorrow i.e 23 June, 2024. Fresh dates of the examination will be notified at the earliest”, the Government statement read, that was issued at 10 pm on Saturday night, which was practically hours before the scheduled Sunday exam.

The doctors associations have strongly condemned this move by the government. “This is absolute disgrace that the government can’t conduct exams properly. This is purely harassment for the students who had been preparing for the exams. Many of them might have travelled to different cities, spent money to appear for the exam and now it has been postponed”, said Dr Suvrankar Datta, vice-president of the Resident Doctors' association, AIIMS.​