A gritty young Calcuttan, just out of artificial ventilation after a road accident a week ago, took the NEET-UG re-examination on Sunday with an ambulance on stand-by.
A Bhopal candidate, who needed first-aid after a road mishap on his way to the exam centre, got a little delayed and was denied entry.
A Rajasthan woman who arrived in a burqa claimed to have been shut out of her test centre, but authorities later said she was allowed to sit the exam.
“More than 20 lakh” students on Sunday took the re-conducted NEET-UG, the all-India exam that governs admissions to undergraduate medical, dental, veterinary and nursing courses, the apex National Testing Agency (NTA) said.
About 23 lakh had sat the original May 3 exam, which was cancelled because of a question paper leak that triggered massive anti-government protests and demands for education minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s scalp.
For the re-exam, the government got the question papers transported by air force aircraft and guarded by central forces.
The NTA, which conducts the exam, posted on X that close to 1.39 lakh CCTV cameras had been placed in the more than 95,000 exam halls at 5,440 centres, located in 551 cities in India and 14 abroad. Some 21,311 signal jammers were installed. Each hall had at least two invigilators and every centre, more than 40 security personnel.
Behind the numbers, though, lay stories of human suffering and resilience that underscored the exam’s life-and-death importance to young students and, by implication, the trauma its cancellation and the surrounding uncertainty would have caused them.
Special arrangements were made in Calcutta’s Dhakuria locality for a student, Srishti Dubey, who had recently suffered a road collision, the education ministry said.
“She met with a major road accident on 14th June in which she broke 9 ribs with major injury in her lungs. She underwent a major vascular surgery and was under artificial ventilation. Now she is extubated and is in a state of recovery. However, she was determined to appear for the NEET exam,” a ministry statement said.
“Her father brought this to the attention of NTA and said that ILS Hospital would provide the necessary medical support with Doctor, Paramedics and necessary arrangement. He requested NTA to allow his daughter to sit for the examination and said it would be a great help if the centre could provide her a seating space with chair and table on the ground floor.”
The ministry added that Srishti was given “a separate room with medical support and a stand by ambulance at the exam centre”.
An NTA statement said: “Special arrangements were put in place for around 81candidates with medical conditions, among them a child who had been in a road accident, and a child undergoing chemotherapy, who were determined not to miss an exam they had prepared for years.”
Gates for the 2pm-to-5.15pm exam closed after 1.30pm, with reports suggesting several late arrivals were denied entry in multiple cities.
One of these candidates, in Bhopal, arrived in bandages. His uncle, Amir Qadri, told reporters: “On our way to the examination centre, we met with an accident and got a bit late.
“Now… the authorities are saying the exam has already begun and that it won’t be possible to permit us entry.”
News agency PTI said an examinee was initially denied entry for arriving in a burqa at her exam centre in Ajmer, Rajasthan. “I have come from Beawar…. When I took the exam on May 3, I was in the same attire… wearing a burqa and a dupatta,” PTI quoted her as saying.
“Initially (on Sunday), they said I would have to remove the dupatta to enter; then they insisted I had to remove the burqa as well.”
The NTA and police later clarified that she was eventually allowed entry.
Another PTI report said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose flight had landed at Delhi airport around 1.15pm, chose to wait there instead of leaving immediately for his residence.
This was to ensure that traffic curbs for his convoy’s movements did not cause inconvenience to the exam centre-bound NEET candidates, the report said.
Around a dozen suicides by candidates had been reported after the cancellation of the May 3 exam.
An analysis of news reports by India Today has found at least 93 NEET-linked student suicides across India over the past five years. The number reportedly peaked in 2025, with at least 32 suicides.