New Delhi: Following issues with the NEET UG 2024 results and the cancellation of the UGC NET on account of an alleged paper leak, the National Testing Agency (NTA) Friday announced the postponement of the CSIR UGC NET 2024. This is the third exam conducted by the NTA to be affected within as many weeks.
In the official notification, the NTA stated that the CSIR UGC NET (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-University Grants Commission National Eligibility Test), originally scheduled to be held between 25 and 27 June, has been postponed until further notice “due to unavoidable circumstances as well as logistic issues”.
Sources in the ministry of education say that the CSIR UGC NET was postponed due to suspicions of a paper leak. There were reports that this exam paper might have been leaked on the dark net and Telegram.
The decision to postpone CSIR UGC NET has reportedly impacted approximately 200,000 students. According to the NTA’s official data, around 36 lakh students across India sit for the three exams. All these students have been affected in the past month due to the NTA’s seeming inability to conduct exams.
When 22-year-old Abhishek Bartwal learned that CSIR UGC NET had been postponed, it took him a few minutes to process the news. Now, all his plans are up in the air. Bartwal, a first-year M.Sc. Chemistry student at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), had selected an exam centre near his hometown of Rudraprayag, Uttarakhand. However, with the postponement, he is unsure about what to do next.
“It was my semester break, so I came to my hometown and decided to take the exam from here. It was supposed to happen on 26 June. My lab work starts on 1 July. If the exam happens in July, I will have to travel back to my hometown to take the exam,” said Bartwal to ThePrint.
“Once my labs start, my day will begin at 8 am and end at 8 pm. There’s a reason these exams are held in June. I won’t have time for revision,” he added.
Like Bartwal, many other aspirants are also grappling with logistical questions about exam centre locations, PhD programme admissions, paper leaks, and concerns about combining the June and December examinations.
The CSIR-UGC NET exam is held twice a year, in June and December. It qualifies candidates for junior research fellowships (JRF) and lecturer positions in sciences at Indian universities, making it a crucial criterion for admission to PhD programmes.
Shaqib, who holds a master’s degree in Physics from JNU, told ThePrint, “My course is complete. I stayed in Delhi only for my exam, and I had booked my train ticket for home for 29 June. Now, I will have to return to Delhi for the exam later. This will cost me time and money.”
“Our biggest fear is that if they merge the June and December exams, our entire year will be wasted as we get admissions to IITs based on the results of the June exam,” he added.
This is not the first time the NTA has disappointed students.
“The NTA is incapable of conducting exams. This is not the first instance of its incompetence and irregularity. The NTA is like a middleman. It’s just a way to make money. We saw NEET-UG, then UGC-NET, and now it’s CSIR-NET’s turn, which has been postponed. We are repeatedly demanding that the agency be suspended,” said JNU Students’ Union President Dhananjay to ThePrint.
The NTA has been conducting the CSIR UGC NET online since December 2019 on behalf of the UGC and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.
The ministry of education has now instructed the NTA to conduct the exam with a new question paper.
Meanwhile, Ravi Atri, the alleged mastermind behind the NEET-UG exam paper leak, was reportedly arrested by Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) Saturday.
Also read: NTA was supposed to rescue exams from ‘Munna Bhais’. Now it’s part of the problem
Govt action so far
The Education Ministry and NTA have been dealing with allegations of paper leaks and irregularities in the NEET UG exams, with the Bihar Police having arrested 13 people in connection with the case. Four of them have reportedly confessed to the crime.
The education ministry has asked Bihar Police’s Economic Offences Unit (EOU) to file a report about the irregularities and paper leaks that took place in NEET UG. According to the sources, EOU has prepared a list of complete evidence related to the NEET-UG 2024 paper leak, which includes a burnt question paper, OMR sheets, booklet numbers, post-dated bank checks, and a formatted mobile phone. All of this was recovered from the paper leak mafia, and documents of the candidates.
The ministry Saturday also formed a seven-member high-level committee, led by former ISRO chairman Dr K. Radhakrishnan, to oversee fair and transparent examinations conducted by the NTA.
Announcing the plan for the formation of the committee Thursday, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had said, “I want to assure you that, once we get concrete evidence, none of the guilty will be spared, whether it is the NTA or some senior NTA official. Our priority is the future of students.”
Additionally, the central government Friday notified The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024, which had received the assent of the President on the 12th of February 2024. The legislation is designed to curb cheating and unfair practices in public examinations and common entrance tests across the country.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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