NEET-UG retest students face trouble accessing admit cards

DIfficulties in accessing test allow cards for the NEET-UG exam to be held on June 21, has triggered defeat among thousands of students, with many taking to societal media to kvetch about website glitches, and confusion over the examination fee refund process.NTA officials said the website was functioning normally. “Over 7 lakh (700,000) students have downloaded their admit cards. Nearly 6,000 concurrent users are using the NEET portal against our capacity to handle one lakh users at a time,” a senior NTA official said, asking not to be named.“It took around three days to download 2.2 million admit cards last time too and the rate of downloading is usual. We are monitoring the load.”Still, candidates reported repeated session expirations, timeout errors and blank screens while attempting to complete mandatory bank account verification linked to refunds and download their hall tickets.The National Testing Agency (NTA) began issuing admit cards on Sunday evening for the June 21 re-examination, which is being conducted after the original May 3 test was cancelled after it emerged that the test paper may have leaked. Around 2.27 million candidates appeared for that exam.Some students said server overload and the linking of refund verification with the admit card download process have added to their anxiety days before the exam. A candidate from Navi Mumbai said she managed to complete the refund process after three attempts two days ago but remained unable to access the admit card.“I tried downloading it on Monday morning thinking traffic would be lower than Sunday, but I cannot even log in. It says my credentials are wrong when they are not. The ‘forgot password’ link is unavailable and I am scared that repeated attempts may block my account,” the student said, requesting anonymity. “This is causing more disturbance in my studies and adding onto the anxiety already caused by the re-NEET.”A student from Bokaro said he had tried “15 to 20 times” but kept receiving a “please try again after some time” message.Another Bokaro-based aspirant said she repeatedly encountered blank pages and “service unavailable” messages.“My question to NTA is, if bank details need to be submitted again and verified in order to download the admit card, what was the point of releasing the refund link days before the admit card?” she asked.Lipi Verma said she had changed her examination city from Bihar to Delhi and was anxious to know the exact location of her centre.“The refund portal just kept showing a new captcha every time I clicked. There was zero progress. This is definitely affecting my schedule and creating unnecessary panic,” she said.A Delhi-based student who eventually managed to access the admit card said the process took almost eight hours spread across Sunday night and Monday.“If you click that your bank details do not need updating, the site hangs. If you try updating them, it leads to a blank screen. I finally downloaded the admit card after multiple attempts,” the student said.In a post on X on Monday evening, NTA said all refunds would be credited directly to the bank accounts updated on the portal and warned candidates against fraudulent calls or messages claiming to expedite the process. It said candidates facing difficulties or those who had submitted incorrect details would get another opportunity to correct them after the examination.The NTA official cited above said several students had entered incorrect bank details earlier, prompting the agency to reopen the facility. “Everybody will get the admit cards by Tuesday or Wednesday.”The original deadline for submitting preferred bank account details for refunds was May 27. NTA later reopened the facility after receiving complaints from candidates who had furnished incorrect information.The May 3 NEET-UG 2026 examination was cancelled on May 12 after investigations found overlaps between a pre-circulated guess paper and the actual question paper. CBI is probing the leak.