NEET paper mix-up in Telangana: No need for concern, says National Testing Agency

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ADILABAD: Students who appeared for the NEET UG-2024 examination at the Asifabad Model School on Sunday reportedly received a different set of question papers than what the rest of the country received.

The incident came to light after some students compared their question papers with those from other centres through their friends. One student, Neha, who wrote the exam at the model school, said that her question paper was different from those received by her friends in Hyderabad, Rangareddy, and other districts.

Later, their parents lodged a complaint with District Collector Venkatesh Dhotre, who then appointed Asifabad RDO A Lokeshwar as the inquiry officer. The RDO visited the high school and collected details from the coordinator, and submitted a report to the collector.

It was found that 299 out of 323 students had attended the exam at the school, all of whom received a different question paper.

The officer explained that the Asifabad coordinator distributed the question papers stored at a Canara Bank strongroom instead of the ones stored at an SBI strongroom. However, it is learnt that the coordinator did this based on a message received from the National Testing Agency (NTA) one hour prior to the examinations. The question papers stored in the Canara Bank branch were supposed to be a reserved set of papers, meant to be used in case of a paper leak or any other discrepancies.

Lokeshwar mentioned that such mistakes occurred nationwide, citing an example from Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu. He said that the district administration contacted the NTA director, who said that both sets of question papers were valid and there was no need for concern. He said that because of the mix-up, the evaluation might take longer than usual. Following this, the students felt relieved.

Meanwhile, the parents of the students said that such mistakes should not occur in the future, emphasising the impact such incidents have on the students' futures, calling for strict monitoring by the district administration.