New Delhi: The Congress on Sunday stepped up its attack on the Centre after a parliamentary committee report flagged serious shortcomings in the National Testing Agency (NTA) and the Ministry of Education, saying the government must abandon “arrogance” and respond to the panel’s recommendations.
Congress general secretary in charge of communications Jairam Ramesh said the report by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, chaired by Rajya Sabha MP Mukul Wasnik, “catalogues the grave incompetence and malpractice in the NTA and the Ministry of Education”.
In a statement shared on X, Ramesh said, “GyaneshGate is dominating the news now but three months ago it was NTAgate that had launched the youth protest movement. Here is our statement on the NTA based on the report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education that has just been submitted to the Chairman, Rajya Sabha.”
Claims On Paper Leaks
Ramesh said the committee report, titled “Reforms and Strengthening of the National Testing Agency (NTA)”, recorded that the ministry had told the panel that no leak had taken place in any NTA examination since the body was set up in 2017,as reported by The New Indian Express.
“The Ministry of Education made the ‘blatantly false and audacious claim’ to the parliamentary committee ‘that no paper leak has occurred in an exam conducted by the NTA since its formation in 2017 till 2025’,” he said.
He added, “There have been 9 paper leaks and irregularities in NTA-conducted exams that we know of. What hope is there for a fair investigation or accountability when the Ministry even refuses to acknowledge what went wrong in the first place?”
Weak Institutional Base
The Congress leader said the NTA was registered as a society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860, rather than being created through an Act of Parliament, which limited its accountability and parliamentary scrutiny.
According to Ramesh, the report described the agency as a “khokhla (empty) body” that outsourced major responsibilities to private contractors. He said it had only 39 sanctioned posts, with 23 officers in position, leaving a 41 per cent vacancy despite the K Radhakrishnan Committee’s emphasis on strengthening staffing.
“All the 39 permanent posts that exist in the NTA are filled through a deputation mode, with officers serving only a 2-3 year tenure,” he said, adding that this prevented institutional expertise from developing.
He further alleged that there was no nationwide blacklist of firms with poor records in examination-related services, allowing companies blacklisted in one state to secure contracts elsewhere.
Demand For Accountability
Ramesh said the NTA did not release NEET-UG results publicly like the UPSC, and the lack of test-centre-wise data made it harder to identify unusual patterns.
“Between the NEET paper leak of 2024 and the NEET paper leak of 2026, the position of Director General of the NTA was held by officers as an additional charge,” he said.
He also criticised the agency for placing a Rs 590-crore revenue surplus in fixed deposits instead of using it for students or examination infrastructure, saying the NTA had become “a financial profit-making business”.
The parliamentary panel has recommended a legislative framework to make the NTA accountable to both Houses of Parliament. It said the cancellation of NEET-UG 2026—held on May 3 and cancelled on May 12 over alleged paper-leak allegations—showed that further reforms were needed.
Ramesh said, “We can only hope that the Modi government sheds its arrogance for the limited time it has remaining and takes this report seriously.”
A parliamentary panel has recommended a law to make the National Testing Agency (NTA) accountable to both Houses of Parliament.
The committee said trust in NTA examinations was important for social justice and national integrity. It stated, “The education department may introduce appropriate Parliamentary framework that ensures NTA’s accountability to Parliament.”
While noting the NTA’s past efforts to improve, the panel said the cancellation of NEET (UG) 2026 showed that more reforms were needed. The exam, held on May 3, was cancelled on May 12 over paper-leak allegations.
