NEW DELHI: The Centre has brought in three senior officers, including an IPS officer, at the National Testing Agency (NTA), giving the embattled examination body fresh administrative muscle as it undergoes one of its biggest personnel and security overhauls following controversies over NEET-UG and UGC-NET.IPS officer Ravi Kumar Singh and IAS officer Prasanna Venkatesh V have been appointed directors at NTA, while Amit Samdariya, a 2016-batch Indian Revenue Service (Customs and Indirect Taxes) officer, will join as joint director. The appointments were cleared through separate personnel ministry orders dated August 27.The induction comes days after NTA began a wider revamp that includes removing around 600 experts from its examination panels, onboarding a fresh set of specialists and introducing a four-tier scrutiny mechanism for question papers.The agency is also strengthening examination security, recruiting additional officials and moving to new premises where security is proposed to be reinforced with CISF deployment. The measures were reviewed recently by Union education minister Pralhad Joshi as the government sought to tighten both the academic and operational ends of the examination process.NTA has been under sustained pressure since the NEET-UG paper leak controversy, which triggered nationwide protests and intensified scrutiny of how high-stakes examinations are secured and administered. More recently, it was forced to order fresh UGC-NET examinations in English, commerce and sociology after multiple errors and repeated questions were detected in the June papers, adding a question-paper quality problem to its security challenges.Against this backdrop, the appointment of officers drawn from the police, administrative and revenue services marks another step in the attempt to strengthen NTA’s institutional capacity.The personnel ministry has directed all three officers to take charge within three weeks. The orders state that failure to join within the stipulated period would trigger the process of debarment from the Central Staffing Scheme.The staffing changes are unfolding alongside a broader examination-reform exercise. A high-powered task force headed by Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani has begun seeking suggestions from students, parents, teachers and other stakeholders on reforms to the public examination system, with the consultation open till September 13.
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The task force is examining examination security, institutional processes, technology, infrastructure, accessibility and student well-being, while the changes within NTA are focused on immediately strengthening the agency responsible for conducting some of the country’s largest entrance and eligibility tests.
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