New Delhi: The National Testing Agency told a parliamentary standing committee on Thursday that it would implement an upper age limit and a cap on the number of attempts for NEET-UG aspirants as part of the next phase of reforms, in line with recommendations of an expert committee chaired by former ISRO chairman K. Radhakrishnan, according to Hindustan Times.
In its presentation to the panel headed by Congress MP Digvijaya Singh, NTA outlined three long-term measures under consideration: a shift from pen-and-paper examinations to computer-based testing; introduction of multi-session and multi-stage testing; and the imposition of age and attempt limits. These will be implemented in consultation with the health ministry. Currently, NEET-UG has a minimum age requirement of 17 years, no upper age limit, and no cap on attempts.
NTA also told the panel that the cancellation of NEET-UG 2026 on May 12 after at least 120 questions in a “guess paper” overlapped with the May 3 examination, affecting over 2.2 million students was not a case of a paper “leak” but involved irregularities and malpractices. BJP MPs at the meeting also opposed the use of the term “paper leak,” with some arguing that the phrase should not have appeared in the agenda document circulated ahead of the meeting. The re-examination is scheduled for June 21.
NTA told the panel that it conducted the exam on May 3, received inputs on May 7 concerning alleged malpractice, forwarded them to central agencies on May 8 for independent verification, and cancelled the examination on May 12 based on findings subsequently shared with the agency. The matter has been referred to the CBI for a comprehensive probe.
In its custody application on May 14, the CBI stated that the Union education ministry’s complaint alleged that the NEET-UG exam “was compromised due to circulation of confidential examinations in PDF format through WhatsApp prior to the examination and that some of the circulated questions allegedly matched with the actual examination paper.”
Ten persons have been arrested in the case, including Shivraj Raghunath Motegaonkar, founder of a Latur-based coaching centre; PV Kulkarni, a retired Pune-based chemistry lecturer; and Manisha Gurunath Mandhare, a Pune-based botany teacher. Both Kulkarni and Mandhare were part of NTA’s NEET-UG 2026 expert panel.
Reactions to Proposed Reforms
Ajai Singh, Vice Chancellor of UP University of Medical Sciences, Saifai, Etawah, welcomed the proposed caps. “Beyond a point, the ability to learn new skills and cope with the rigours of medical training declines. We already have such limits in several competitive examinations, and it is important to ensure students do not spend years repeatedly attempting one exam at the cost of their academic and professional growth,” he said.
Pritesh Maurya, a NEET coaching teacher from Lucknow, urged caution on timing. He said any cap should be announced well in advance, giving students two to three years to prepare. “Strict limits could disadvantage rural and economically weaker students, especially those from state school boards with weaker schooling backgrounds, compared to better-schooled urban candidates,” he said, adding that candidates should be allowed attempts at least until around 25 years of age.
Security Measures and CBT Shift
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan announced on May 15 that NEET-UG would move to computer-based test mode from next year. NTA currently has CBT capacity for 150,000 candidates per shift and aims to scale that to one million within a year.
Phase-1 security measures already in place for the June 21 re-examination include Aadhaar-linked biometric verification, face authentication at registration, multi-layer frisking by state police and NTA teams, mobile jammers deployed by Bharat Electronics Limited and Electronics Corporation of India Limited, and AI-enabled CCTV surveillance across all exam rooms. NTA has set up 34 state-wise control rooms, central monitoring hubs at NTA and the Ministry of Education, and district-level audit committees headed by collectors. Over 99.5% of examination centres are government-run, and all 500-plus city coordinators are principals from Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan or government schools.
Phase-2 measures under planning include cloud-based examination infrastructure, blockchain-enabled security architecture, stronger cryptographic protocols, an NTA-owned public testing platform, and eventual harmonisation of engineering and medical entrance examinations through common standards and technology, without merging them into a single exam.
Since its inception in 2018, NTA has conducted over 270 examinations involving more than 66 million candidates. The parliamentary committee headed by Digvijaya Singh currently has 28 members, including 17 from BJP, four from Congress, three from Samajwadi Party, two from Trinamool Congress, and one each from DMK and NCP-SP.
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