NEW DELHI: National Testing Agency (NTA) and education ministry kept their fingers crossed until the final answer sheets of India’s largest entrance exam, NEET-UG, were sealed on Sunday, bringing to a close a high-stakes retest conducted under the shadow of the May 3 paper leak.Organised in 37 days, far short of the four-six months the exercise would ordinarily require, the retest to admissions to under-graduate medical courses passed off without any reported breach or major disruption – a relief to the agency and education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who have come under fire since the scrapping of the exam. NTA has called the retest “a fair chance, a fresh start”.Pradhan monitored the conduct of the test – taken by over 20 lakh candidates at 5,440 centres in India and 14 abroad – from NTA headquarters in Delhi’s Okhla till it ended, for any fresh lapse would have intensified the credibility crisis surrounding the exam. He reviewed feeds from command-and-control centres and called up exam centres too.

Biology was easy, physics tough, say NEET aspirants Pradhan reviewed inputs from command-and-control centres, from the ministry at the national level, 34 centrally funded higher education institutions in every state, and district collectorates, sources said.The arrangements were part of a larger security and logistics grid – involving security and intelligence agencies, IAF to transport question papers, and ministries of railways, home affairs, defence, health and IT – put in place to eliminate lapses. The May 3 exam was cancelled after more than 120 questions allegedly overlapped with material circulated before the test. It triggered a CBI probe, and several people were arrested, including those who were on the paper-setting panel.Security this time extended beyond protecting the printed paper: the question bank was larger, there were more paper-setters and restrictions, ensuring nobody could get to know or see the final paper. Moreover, the experts who prepared and moderated the papers worked under ‘lockdown-like’ conditions, with heavy restrictions on gadgets, including mobile phones. The govt also restricted access to Telegram app until June 22 over concerns it may be used for cheating. Biology was described as easy-to-moderate, while several found physics calculation-heavy, and chemistry lengthy and difficult. Students from several exam centres reported that NEET centres were better prepared for the re-exam. However, some candidates complained about power outages, and disturbances during the exam despite NTA’s directions to minimise interruptions once the test began.