Govt Removes NTA Chief Ahead Of NEET Retest, Postpones PG Entrance Exam For Medical Students

New Delhi: In the wake of allegations of irregularities in the conduct of NEET-UG and UGC-NET exams, the central government on Saturday removed National Testing Agency (NTA) director general Subodh Kumar Singh from his post.

Singh has been placed on “compulsory wait” in the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) and retired 1985-batch IAS officer of the Karnataka cadre, Pradeep Singh Karola, has been appointed in his place till a regular chief is appointed or until further orders, the notification issued by ministry concerned said.

The move comes hours after the government constituted a committee to recommend steps to improve the functioning of the agency and a day before around 1,500 students, who had been given grace marks for NEET-UG, are scheduled to take a retest.

Additionally, the NEET-PG Entrance Examination scheduled for Sunday has been postponed. “Taking into consideration the recent incidents of allegations regarding the integrity of certain competitive examinations, the Ministry of Health has decided to undertake a thorough assessment of the robustness of processes of the NEET-PG Entrance Examination, conducted by the National Board of Examination for medical students,” read the statement by the ministry.

The fresh date for the examination will be announced at the earliest, it added.

A day before, the exam conducting body had cautioned against people on social media groups who were offering the question paper to aspirants for a considerable sum of money.

On Friday, the June edition of the Joint Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and UGC-NET was also postponed. “There was no leak in CSIR-UGC NET, it was apostponed because of logistic issues. There is also a retest of 1,563 NEET candidates tomorrow. For smooth conduct of the exam everywhere, the decision was taken,” Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had told reporters.