New Delhi: Amid allegations of irregularities in the marking process, the Ministry of Education has constituted a four-member high-powered committee to look into the issue of grace marks being awarded to more than 1,500 of the 23 lakh candidates who appeared for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG 2024) in May this year.
The announcement was made at a press conference here by Subodh Kumar Singh, director general of the National Testing Agency (NTA), which administers the pre-medical test.
Since the NEET-UG 2024 results were declared on 4 June, several students have flagged what they termed gross discrepancies in this year’s results which led to 67 students sharing the top rank, including six from the same exam centre in Haryana.
Another concern was regarding the process by which grace marks were awarded to students, besides allegations of inflation of marks.
Many of the students who alleged discrepancies have demanded re-examination while some have knocked the court’s doors.
The high-powered committee, headed by a former Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) chairperson, will look into the issue of grace marks, and submit its recommendations within a week, Singh said Saturday.
However, Singh reiterated that this will not affect the result of other candidates. “We are aware that the counselling process is about to begin but this (inquiry) will not affect the admission process,” he said.
Vouching for the transparency of the examination, Singh said the NTA thoroughly analysed all aspects before declaring the results.
He added that of the 4,750 exam centres, issues were limited to only six. These included exam centres in Meghalaya, Chandigarh, Surat, and Chhattisgarh.
Singh also said that the NEET examination is one of the biggest exams in the world conducted in a single shift and was affected due to late distribution of question papers at some exam centres which resulted in loss of time allotted to students appearing for it.
He also denied allegations that NEET-UG question papers were leaked.
“We denied reports on 6 May that the paper had been leaked. Integrity of the examination was not compromised at all. Only one question affected (the students) this time. So many questions are prepared, out of 1,563 students who were reassessed, 790 students qualified. Thirteen lakh students overall qualified. Those who have been compensated with grace marks have not affected the overall percentage of marks,” he said.
Singh added that in this year’s NEET examination, only one question was challenged which was the lowest number in the history of the NEET examination.
Moreover, he said that based on time lost and wrong answers, grace marks were given to students but that the grace marks were separate for each student. “This depends on the overall performance of students in the examination,” he added. The NTA has been trying to strengthen NEET protocols to ensure that the issue is not repeated, said Singh.
This year, NEET was conducted on 5 May across 571 cities in India and 14 centres abroad.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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