Nagpur, 20 June

The family of a student here claimed that he was allotted an examination centre in the UAE's Abu Dhabi for the 21 June NEET-UG re-test, while the NTA stated that he himself had chosen that exam venue, and now he has been given a centre in Nagpur as per his request.

The National Testing Agency (NTA) maintained that the candidate had changed the exam centre to Abu Dhabi using his credentials.

The student - Abdulla Talib - had given preference to Nagpur, Wardha, and Bhandara centres for the examination, his father, Dr Mohammed Talib, said.

"Yesterday, when we downloaded the examination card, we were shocked to see the examination centre allotted in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Subsequently, we raised a complaint about it with the NTA, which assured us that the correction would be done by 4pm on Saturday," he said.

The NTA issued a fresh examination card to the candidate after allotting Nagpur as the retest centre on Saturday afternoon.

"We were tense and under a lot of pressure. But we are relieved now," Talib said.

When asked about the NTA's version that the candidate himself had chosen the Abu Dhabi centre, he said, "We don't know how it got selected. We had chosen Nagpur, Wardha and Bhandara...Now, due to stress and this goof-up, our son is not willing to appear for the exam. But we are trying to convince him to give the retest.

The NTA took to X to clarify its stand on the issue.

It said, "NTA's web-activity records indicate that the city change in this case was made through the candidate's own registered login during the open correction window, with a consistent single-user access pattern."

Despite the Abu Dhabi centre being chosen by the candidate, the NTA received an informal request on the evening of 19 June (just 48 hours before the exam) to change the centre to Nagpur. NTA personnel immediately initiated the change and contacted the candidate's father on 19th evening itself to help them complete the formal process, the testing agency said.

"NTA has observed that on 3 occasions, once the centre was changed to Abu Dhabi using the candidate's credentials, and twice it was previewed that the centre is Abu Dhabi. Despite that NTA has accorded to the aspirant's request and the change of centre was actioned," it added in the post.

The NTA further said that following the rescheduling of NEET-UG to 21 June, it reopened the examination city correction window to assist candidates. Around 3.2 lakh candidates used the correction window, and NTA allotted the preferred examination city to over 99.5 per cent of them, it added.

Highlighting its "student-first" approach, the NTA said its priority is that no candidate misses the examination over an administrative doubt.