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New Delhi: Days after the National Testing Agency (NTA) declared the results of the NEET-UG re-examination, the agency is facing flak from students and opposition leaders over alleged score mismatches.
Several students claimed irregularities and discrepancies in their final scores when compared against the scores they had estimated using the final answer key and their recorded responses in their OMR sheets.
In some cases, the alleged discrepancy is drastically high. Bipin Kumar Singh of Giridih in Jharkhand laments, “Where did my 668 marks vanish?” The 19-year-old said he had estimated at least 672 marks after the answer key was released by the NTA on July 16, just hours before the final results were declared. But when he saw the results, over 26 hours later — since the portal remained inaccessible for him all this while — to his shock, his grand total was a meagre four (4) marks.
Bipin had spent his last three years in Kota studying at a prominent coaching institute. Questioning the alleged irregularity, his elder brother, Dipak Kumar, asks, “Can such a student get only 4 marks?”
“While the NTA has acknowledged our complaint, it is yet to get back to us. Our repeated emails and calls haven’t elicited any response from them,” says Bipin. Now, he plans to visit the NTA headquarters in New Delhi.
Delhi’s Tanvi Singh, another affected candidate, is also disappointed with her final scores. “With the provisional answer key, it was 292; then, with the final answer key, it was 345; and now my final score is 274,” said Tanvi. “I have no idea what is happening.”
In a video post on social media, Kanpur’s Arya Singh claimed that, after matching her recorded responses with the final answer key, she had expected 609 marks. But the final results reduced her score to 540. However, this wasn’t the end. Another round of score revision followed for Arya, according to her. “Within hours, my score was brought down to 167,” said Arya.
However, earlier in the day, the NTA flagged “several” AI-generated OMR answer sheets submitted to it and warned against doing so.Pointing at one of the circulating OMR images, the NTA said, “The image being circulated on social media is not the OMR sheet on record with the NTA. It is a digitally altered version.”
However, the NTA’s response attracted widespread criticism on social media. Education activist Vineet Jindal said, “While fake OMRs must be strictly dealt with, this shouldn’t be used as an excuse to dismiss other genuine cases.”
AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal came down heavily against the testing agency over its “warning”. He said, “You (NTA) are a disgrace to the country. Now you have the audacity to threaten helpless students with legal action? The least you could have done was be sensitive, helpful and humble. Shame on you!”
