The government replaced the chief of the National Testing Agency on Saturday after it constituted a panel to probe the body, amid outcry over alleged irregularities in competitive exams NEET-UG and UGC-NET.
NTA Director General Subodh Singh has been put on 'compulsory wait' in the Department of Personnel and Training till further orders, a notification by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet read.
Singh has been replaced with India Trade Promotion Organisation Chairman and Managing Director Pradeep Singh Kharola. He will assume additional charge of the testing agency till appointment of a regular incumbent.
The NTA has been making headline for all the wrong reasons, following multiple controversies in the administration of key national level exams, like the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (Undergraduate) and the University Grants Commission–National Eligibility Test.
The government formed a high-level committee of experts earlier today for a review of the functioning of the agency. The panel, headed by former ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan, will make recommendations on reforms in mechanism of examination process, improvement in data security protocols and structure and functioning of the NTA.
The committee includes former AIIMS Delhi Director Randeep Guleria, BJ Rao, vice chancellor of Central University of Hyderabad, Ramamurthy K, professor emeritus in the department of civil engineering at IIT Madras, Pankaj Bansal, co-founder of HR tech platform People Strong, and Aditya Mittal, dean-student affairs at IIT Delhi.
The expert committee will submit its report to the government within two months with its set of recommendations.
After the NEET UG 2024 results were declared on June 4, widespread allegations of irregularities and demands for a re-examination echoed across the country. Over 24 lakh candidates across 4,750 centres in 571 cities, including 14 overseas venues, took the examination.
On Wednesday, the UGC NET exam was scrapped by the centre, following inputs received from the National Cyber Crime Threat Analytics Unit, over concerns that the integrity of the examination may have been compromised. A retest was declared, the date of which is yet to be announced.
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