New Delhi. The government has taken the charge to stop the allegations of irregularities in the NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Exam) exam related to medical admission and the politics surrounding it from getting escalated. The secretaries of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting along with the Director General of the National Testing Agency clarified the situation afresh on the whole matter on Saturday and said that there is no irregularity in the NEET exam.

He said that the controversy is only about giving grace marks to about 1600 students of six centers, who were given these marks in lieu of being given less time in the exam. In such a situation, a four-member committee has been formed under the chairmanship of the former chairman of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to investigate the whole matter afresh. Which will submit its report in a week. It is believed that only after this report, NTA can give them the option of continuing the grace marks or giving the exam again to all these students.

Counseling will be done on time

While talking to journalists on the controversy related to NEET, Higher Education Secretary of the Ministry of Education K. Sanjay Murthy and Secretary of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Sanjay Jaju along with Director General of the National Testing Agency (NTA) Subodh Singh said that this controversy will not have any effect on the counseling process. It will happen on its scheduled time.

Along with this, the NTA Director General clarified the situation regarding questions raised on 67 students scoring 720 out of 720 marks in NEET and said that 44 of these students, as there were two correct options for a question in Physics, were later given marks for that question to all and were given full marks due to grace marks received due to less time. Meanwhile, the six centres where students have been given grace marks include two centres in Chhattisgarh, Balod and Dantewada, Bahadurgarh in Haryana, one centre each in Chandigarh, Meghalaya and Surat in Gujarat.

Grace marks were received due to less time

Due to distribution of wrong question paper at these centers, students were given another question paper. Due to this, they got less time in the exam. NTA DG told that students lodged a complaint after the exam was over. After which it was investigated and it was found that their complaint was correct. In such a situation, a committee was formed to compensate the loss suffered by the students, which suggested to compensate this loss by grace marks on the basis of the previous decision of the High Court. Later, under a fixed standard, all these about 1600 students were given grace marks.

Due to this, some students also got 718 and 719 marks. However, NTA did not answer the question related to the information about the minimum and maximum marks for giving grace marks. It is worth noting that the result of NEET exam was declared on June 4, the day of the results of Lok Sabha elections. NTA also answered this and said that they had already announced the dates for declaring the NEET exam results. In such a situation, it was considered appropriate to declare them on time. There was no basis for delay.

23 lakh students had appeared for the NEET exam

Although a total of 24 lakh students had registered to appear in NEET-UG-2024, but out of these, 23 lakh students appeared for the exam. More than 13 lakh students have qualified in this examination conducted at 4750 examination centers in 571 cities of the country and 14 cities outside the country. NTA had equipped all the examination centers with CCTV cameras.