By Gopal Ram Tripathi

A day before lakhs of students were set to sit the high-stakes NEET UG 2026 re-examination, the National Testing Agency (NTA) found itself at the centre of yet another controversy — this time, for mistakenly assigning a Nagpur student an examination centre in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The situation escalates as the parents are caught in a panic created by the National Test Agency (NTA). 

Abdullah Mohammad Talib, a Nagpur-based candidate, noticed the error after downloading his admit card from the NTA's official website ahead of the June 21 re-examination. Despite applying from Nagpur and selecting local venues as his preferred cities, his admit card listed a centre in Abu Dhabi. 

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"After the admit card was downloaded at 4 pm yesterday, we found the Centre mentioned to be a school in Abu Dhabi. We were really shocked as we had not given anything as such in our options. We dialled up the helpline number. They told us to send them mail. When we sent mail, we received a call that we will be issued a fresh admit card by 4 pm on Saturday. We had given 3 districts as options but we now demand that Nagpur be given us as the Centre because he is shocked. There is no time to go to any other district. He cried a lot yesterday and did not even want to write the exam. But his mother tried to convince him. If he is convinced, he will appear for the exam. He does not even have a passport," his father, Mohammad Talib, said. The student was reportedly so distressed that he did not even want to appear for the exam, but was eventually convinced by his mother.

Abdullah had given preference to Nagpur, Wardha, and Bhandara as his examination cities, all well within Maharashtra. The Abu Dhabi allotment shocked the family and triggered immediate outrage online. Following the discovery, the student's parents contacted the NTA helpline and lodged a complaint. NTA officials acknowledged that a technical glitch had caused the error and assured the family that corrective action would be taken. 

The agency moved rapidly to address the backlash. NTA Director General Abhishek Singh confirmed the issue had been resolved, saying: "The issue has been resolved, and the candidate has now been allotted a centre in Nagpur." 

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The incident, however, has done little to reassure an already anxious student community. The re-examination was called after the original NEET-UG test on May 3 was cancelled following allegations of a coordinated paper leak, with the case handed over to the CBI. More than 22.79 lakh candidates are registered for the re-exam, to be held on June 21 from 2 pm to 5:15 pm in pen-and-paper mode across 551 cities in India and 14 cities abroad. Opposition politicians were quick to seize on the blunder. Congress leader and former Maharashtra education minister Anees Ahmed said such errors put undue pressure on already stressed students, adding: "The government machinery is not improving. Don't play with the career of students." 

This issue raises more questions for the National Test Agency (NTA). For an agency trying to rebuild trust after a damaging paper leak scandal, a last-minute admit card error sending a student, without a passport, to another country was hardly the confidence-booster it needed.

[VP]

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