Technical glitches delayed the start of the morning paper of the Common University Entrance Test Undergraduate at several centres on Saturday, forcing students to wait in the exam hall for two hours and adding to the National Testing Agency’s track record of shame.
While most students who had reached the snag-hit centres were able to take the computer-based test, a total of 3,765 — roughly 5 per cent of the about 75,000 examinees scheduled to sit the day’s morning paper across the country — could not.
In a post on X, the NTA claimed these students “chose to leave: before the exam started, but there were allegations that these examinees had been incorrectly told the exam had been postponed”.
Students who did not take the exam will be given a fresh chance, the NTA added.
How many of the 300-odd centres were afflicted by the glitch remained unclear, with authorities refusing to answer calls and the NTA merely saying “some” centres were affected.
Several of these centres were iON Digital Zone centres, owned by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).
The NTA, the country’s apex testing agency, has since its inception in 2018 been plagued by technical snags and paper leaks. The latest leak forced the cancellation of this year’s NEET-UG for admission to undergraduate medical courses, prompted a CBI probe and triggered petitions before the Supreme Court seeking the agency’s dissolution.
The CUET-UG, an entrance test for general-stream undergraduate courses, began on May 11 and ends on May 31. Every day, the morning paper is followed by an afternoon paper.
“Earlier today, some centres faced a technical glitch that delayed the start of Shift 1. We know this was stressful, and we’re sorry for the anxiety it caused,” the NTA said.
“The technical service provider, TCS iON, has been asked to conduct a root-cause analysis and submit its report immediately. Most candidates (about 95%) were able to complete their exam once it resumed. We understand that 3,765 candidates who were present and had completed biometric registration chose to leave before the exam could restart.
“For these candidates, NTA will hold a rescheduled examination as a one-time measure. The new date and details will be announced separately.”
In a statement, Tata Consultancy Services CEO and managing director K. Krithivasan said: “A brief technical issue caused delay of around two hours in the CUET-UG examination in the morning shift today.
“The issue was promptly identified and resolved by our technical teams and the examination has since resumed without any impact to the sanctity of the exam. We regret the inconvenience.”
The students who took the test were given additional time to compensate for the delay in starting the exam. The examinees’ family members, waiting outside the centres, protested against the NTA.
Akhand Pratap Singh, an X user, challenged the NTA’s claim that the candidates who did not take the exam had left on their own. He wrote that examinees assigned the Adarsh Pariksha Kendra in Sector 64, Noida, as their centre had left after being told the exam had been postponed.
A school principal said one of her students had told her that at an iON centre in Delhi, the fans ran at a slow speed while the examinees sat in front of their computers without any clear information on whether and when the exam would start.
“The government is saying the NEET will be held as a computer-based test from next year (to avoid paper leaks), but most exams in the computer mode are not free of glitches, either,” she said.
Rajeev Kumar, retired IIT Kharagpur computer science professor, said: “The glitches are primarily the result of poorly maintained systems, obsolete accessories, and inadequately trained technicians managing examination centres.”
He said such lapses reflected “not merely technical shortcomings but a deeper problem of accountability among the NTA officials responsible for conducting and supervising the examinations”.
Kumar underlined that the NTA frequently cited its AI-enabled CCTV surveillance systems as a safeguard against malpractice and yet these systems had rarely, if ever, been shown to detect or prevent major lapses.
He also questioned the proposal to use air force aircraft for transporting the question papers for the fresh NEET-UG, to be held on June 21, calling it a largely optical measure.
“Has there been any reported instance of the leak of printed question papers during transport?” he said.
“The reported leaks have generally involved the questions reaching unauthorised people through question setters, translators, or other insiders in the exam chain.”