NEET’s shift to computer-based testing faces single-shift hurdle

MOre than a twelvemonth after a government-appointed regenerate venire made a “ warm caseful” for moving NEET-UG to computer-based testing — describing it as the “sure way forward” against paper leaks — the transition remains stalled, caught between NTA’s infrastructure constraints and a health ministry condition that has proved impossible to meet for a test administered to 2.3 million takers: that any online exam must be conducted in a single shift.The Radhakrishnan panel, constituted after the NEET-UG 2024 controversy, recommended in its October 2024 report that the examination shift from pen-and-paper to digital mode. “In a high-technology era, continuing indefinitely with pen-and-paper testing is difficult to justify. Printing, transport and physical distribution create multiple leak points. Computer-based testing (CBT) allows algorithm-driven delivery with minimal manual handling and hence can act as a prevention method for paper leaks,” a member of the panel said, asking not to be named.The recommendation has gone nowhere.NTA director general Abhishek Singh said the agency is ready to move — but only on instruction. “We will conduct the exam in CBT mode if the health ministry gives us in writing that they want us to conduct the exam in CBT mode. It will take around 20 shifts to manage around 2.2 million NEET candidates, and we will have to follow the normalisation process to ensure fairness to all students,” he said.The infrastructure numbers explain why. “Around 150,000 students sit for CBT exams in a shift conducted by NTA. We conducted JEE Main 2026 session 1 in nine shifts for over 1.3 million students and session 2 in 10 shifts for over 1 million students. NTA scores are normalised across multi-shift papers based on relative performance within each shift,” an NTA official said, requesting anonymity.Twenty shifts for 2.3 million NEET candidates would be more than twice what JEE Main required across both its sessions combined.The health ministry, meanwhile, has held a position it communicated to NTA nearly three years ago: online examinations are acceptable only in a single shift. “When this matter was brought to the health ministry almost three years back, it was already communicated that if the NTA can conduct online examinations in CBT mode in a single shift, then it should do so. We do not want problems later arising from complaints that one set of questions was different from another or that an earlier paper was easier. To rule out issues related to normalisation, the health ministry had suggested conducting the examination in a single shift,” a senior official said, asking not to be named.The same official acknowledged the scale while declining to shift the position: “This year, around 23 lakh students appeared for the examination, which is a huge number. But India is capable of advancing to that stage.”The National Medical Commission Act, 2019 mandates a “common” NEET on an all-India basis; the NMC’s guidelines require it to be “uniform.” Neither provision expressly requires a single shift, but experts say a multi-shift format could face legal challenge if candidates argue that normalisation compromises uniformity. An education ministry official said the decision rests with the health ministry, since NTA conducts NEET under NMC regulations. “NTA will conduct the test in the mode it is asked to,” the official said.The Supreme Court has already weighed in on the single-shift question in a related context. On May 30 last year, it directed the National Board of Examinations to cancel plans for a two-shift NEET-PG 2025, ordering a single-shift exam to prevent “arbitrariness” arising from different difficulty levels.Normalisation — adjusting scores to offset difficulty differences across shifts based on relative performance within each session — is at the heart of the impasse. NTA uses it for JEE Main, but for NEET, where a single mark can determine whether a candidate secures a government or private seat, the tolerance for perceived unfairness is near zero.The Radhakrishnan panel had proposed a path through: a nationwide network of 400–500 standardised testing centres within a year, capable of accommodating 200,000–250,000 candidates per session and eventually expanding to every district headquarters. The buildout would gradually reduce shifts required and bring the single-shift aspiration within reach. That plan has not moved either.For students who have now sat two compromised NEET cycles, the debate feels abstract. Anshita Tanwar, who appeared for the exam in Indore, said the technology is not the issue. “Online exams may reduce leak chances, but we are still not fully assured that it will prevent paper leaks given the NTA’s record in handling NEET exam.”Keshav Agarwal, president of an education federation in Delhi, was less forgiving of the delay. “Online exams eliminate physical paper entirely, making printing-press leaks and transport-chain theft structurally impossible. The resistance to going fully online — despite available, proven technology — points to institutional inertia or vested interests in keeping the physical paper supply chain alive.”