According to NTA officials, all precautions will be taken with senior officers from the testing agency as well as the union education ministry being present at the examination centres this time. (Representational image)
These students have been given a choice to either appear for a re-test on June 23 or consider their original scores without the grace marks
The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET-UG) will be rescheduled for 1,563 candidates, who were awarded grace marks in the exam held on June 16, officials at the National Testing Agency (NTA) said on Friday.
According to NTA officials, all precautions will be taken with senior officers from the testing agency as well as the union education ministry being present at the examination centres this time.
The exam will take place at seven centres across the country this Sunday (June 23).
“We have assigned six new centres for these candidates while only one centre at Chandigarh where only one to two students are to appear is the same,” said a senior NTA official, who didn't wish to be named.
The exam is being rescheduled for 1,563 candidates from six centres, who were awarded grace marks to compensate them for time lost while writing the test due to administrative reasons such as wrong distribution of question papers, torn OMR sheets, etc.
The NEET-UG exam was held on May 5. However, controversy broke out soon after the results were announced on June 4 with allegations of inflated marks for candidates from six centres, including those from Meghalaya, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, and Gujarat. It also led to protests in several states with allegations of paper leak and irregularities.
Several candidates and their parents approached the court as well on the matter.
The re-examination is a choice for these candidates while admit cards have been issued to all. “As of now, we cannot say how many of these 1,563 will appear for the exam on Sunday. We will know the exact numbers only that day,” the official said.
The matter was challenged in the Supreme Court. Following this, the NTA withdrew the grace marks, and these 1,563 students were given a choice to either appear for a re-test on June 23 or consider their original scores without the grace marks.
Also, the apex court on Friday refused to postpone the counselling of NEET-UG, which is scheduled to begin on July 6. The SC will hear the pleas on July 8.
Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan while addressing the media this week on the NEET controversy accepted that “there were some errors limited to specific regions”. At the same time, he announced that the ministry is constituting a high-level committee comprising cyber experts, academics, administrators, and scientists to look into the functioning of the NTA.
Stay ahead with all the exam results updates on News18 Website.
