The cancellation of the NEET UG-2026 over alleged irregularities is expected to yield business worth several hundred crores for private coaching institutes, which are set to start crash courses for the impending retest.
NTA director-general Abhishek Singh said a retest would be conducted soon. The retest schedule will be announced in the next 7 to 10 days. The Telegraph checked with five private coaching institutions on their plans to launch crash courses to help NEET aspirants in the fresh exam.
Three private coaching institutions have decided to offer crash courses to aspirants till the fresh National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) is conducted. One institute will start the course on May 16, while another on the day after, their counsellors said. The third institute said it had called its students back for crash courses. One counsellor said the institute would charge ₹5,000 per student for the crash course. The fourth institute said it would decide on the crash course in the next two days. The fifth one said they would not offer any such course this time.
A total of 22.69 lakh candidates took the NEET UG-2026 on May 3. The National Testing Agency (NTA) cancelled it on Tuesday after approval from the Union government over an alleged paper leak.
A government official said that nearly 80 to 90 per cent of candidates who have cleared the NEET had admitted to taking the help of private coaching centres. If 50 per cent of these candidates go for crash courses, the private coaching institutes will earn over ₹500 crore, he said.
“Exam cancellation adds stress and anxiety to students, but it is business for the private coaching industry. Students and parents are helpless,” said the official.
The NEET is being held in the pen-and-paper mode. An official with the education ministry said there was a lobby against such a mode. The other examinations conducted by the NTA are computer-based tests (CBT) in which students get questions on a computer screen. The NTA pays ₹300 per student to the service providers for lending their facilities to conduct the exams in the CBT mode.
“There is pressure on the NTA to opt for the CBT mode in the NEET. If that happens, the NTA will spend more money, particularly on private test facilities. It will be business for them,” the official said.
NTA director-general Singh said the agency had received information from a whistleblower about a PDF being circulated on WhatsApp before NEET UG-2026. It had “some” questions which matched the actual questions in the test. Singh said the test was cancelled because the matching of some questions amounted to “vitiating the examination process”. Singh joined the NTA on April 1, just a month before the latest NEET. Ideally, the previous director-general should have continued till a major entrance exam was over.