NEW DELHI: To ensure the NEET-UG retest on Sunday (June 21) takes place smoothly, the National Testing Agency (NTA) will conduct a nationwide drill on Saturday, said the education ministry.
The NTA said that it was fully geared up to conduct a “transparent and secure” re-exam through a multi-layered security and monitoring framework, mobilisation of over 2 lakh personnel and candidate-centric measures. The agency has started reaching out to the 22.79 lakh candidates through Whatsapp while asserting that no leaks have taken place.
The agency issued a series of public notices and press statements on Friday. To hold the re-xam across 561 cities in India and 14 cities abroad, it has mobilised over 2 lakh personnel, it said in a release. A total of 674 city co-ordinators, 6,699 observers for independent oversight along with centre superintendents and invigilators at every examination centre are facilitating the process. “Coordinated effort has been undertaken with district administrators, police forces and escort teams, particularly for the secure transportation of confidential materials,” it said.
The NTA has put in place a multi-layered security framework to ensure a fair exam. “End-to-end secure handling of confidential materials to designated locations under sealed protocols, GPS-enabled vehicles with police escort for movement of examination materials, CCTV surveillance at all examination centres with feeds linked to centralised control rooms, mandatory frisking through high sensitivity metal detectors and Aadhaar-based biometric authentication to prevent impersonification have been put in place,” it said.
The NTA has begun sending exam updates and information on the centres for re-test to candidates directly on WhatsApp. It appealed to candidates to take precautions and verify if the communication was sent only by the NTA by following three steps—“crosscheck if the messages are sent only from the agency’s verified account +91 78279 80287; watch out for the blue verified tick name ‘National Testing Agency’; and finally any number without the blue tick is NOT NTA even if it uses our name.” NTA is operating this as a broadcast-only channel. “We will not ask you to reply, share OTPs/personal details, or pay. Any ‘NTA’ message that does so is fraud,” it added.
In a public notice, it said students who are unable to complete the biometric verification at the centre due to some reason will be allowed to take the exam after submitting an undertaking for which forms are available at the centre.
