Nagpur student allotted Abu Dhabi centre for NEET re-test, allege kin; NTA says it was chosen by him

NAGPUR: The family of a student here claimed that he was allotted an examination centre in UAE's Abu Dhabi for the June 21 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 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 in UAE. Subsequently, we raised a complaint about it with the NTA, which assured us that the correction will be done by 4 pm 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 re-test.

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 June 19 (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, one - the centre was changed to Abu Dhabi using candidate's credentials and twice it was previewed that the centre is Abu Dhabi. Despite that NTA has accorded to 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 June 21, 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.