From e-rickshaw blunder to police escorts: NEET-UG 2025 undergoes major security overhaul

NEW DELHI: The ministry of education has been working on a ‘fool-proof’ plan to prevent a repeat of last year’s security lapses, irregularities, and paper leak allegations, which shook students’ trust and the integrity of the single-largest medical entrance test – NEET UG.

The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test Undergraduate (NEET UG 2025) is slated to be held on May 4. Over 23 lakh MBBS aspirants will be writing the exam in around 5,000 exam centres located in 550 cities across the country. The National Testing Agency (NTA), which has already issued the NEET city slip 2025, will now publish the NEET UG admit card 2025 for all registered candidates on its official website, neet.nta.nic.in.

As per the direction of the Supreme Court, the MoE set up a 7-member committee headed by former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairperson K. Radhakrishnan to suggest reforms in the exam to prevent malpractices.

Following this, the panel recommended holding the NEET UG 2025 exam in multiple shifts, reducing the number of attempts, and introducing an age limit. However, the NTA removed the optional questions introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic and announced that it will conduct the exam in the old format – pen and paper mode.

‘NEET UG scam’

The biggest controversy was recorded in NEET UG 2024 after the exam was marred by a series of shocking security lapses, scandals, and paper leaks. From confidential materials such as the NEET question paper and OMR sheets being transported in unsecured e-rickshaws to the arrest of solver gangs in several states – last year’s Supreme Court hearing revealed alarming truths about the medical entrance exam. Take a look at the major challenges and shocking revelations of last year.

NEET result controversy - Last year saw an unprecedented number of 61 students scoring a perfect 720 in the NEET exam. While the Supreme Court in June 2024 noted that the "NEET exam sanctity has been affected," it refused to cancel the exam and hold a re-NEET, stating that "there was not enough evidence or data to show the sanctity of the exam was affected."

The NTA, which continued to deny the allegations, heavily relied on the IIT Madras report on the NEET results. However, aspirants filed a petition against the IIT Madras report, stating that it was “fundamentally flawed due to its incomplete data collection and superficial analysis.”

The top court eventually asked the NTA to revise the results and hold a re-exam for 1,563 students who were given grace marks. However, around 48% of students skipped the exam. The number of NEET toppers was also reduced from 61 to 17 due to a revision in one physics question.

Further investigations by the CBI and state police led to arrests mainly in Bihar, Rajasthan, and other states, with links to coaching centres, coaching centre operators, and middlemen, among others.

Also read ‘NEET Scam’: Why NTA’s clarifications on NEET results raise more questions

E-rickshaw and Telegram – The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had questioned three medical students from AIIMS Patna in connection with the NEET UG solver gang case. It also arrested Pankaj Kumar alias Aditya, a 2017-batch civil engineer from the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Jamshedpur, who allegedly stole the NEET UG paper from the NTA trunk in Hazaribagh.

A viral video showing the NEET UG question paper being widely circulated through the Telegram app also raised eyebrows over the security lapses in the largest entrance exam. In another blatant violation of security protocols, the question papers were transported in unsecured e-rickshaws in some exam centres. These local transports were not tracked or escorted by any law enforcement. This led the Supreme Court to consider two possibilities for the NEET paper leak – either it was leaked before the custody of the bank or during transportation.

Solver gang and impersonation – The Economic Offences Unit (EOU) of the Bihar Police and the CBI arrested several individuals and conducted search operations to find the ‘NEET solver gang’. The mastermind behind the NEET solver gang was reportedly Shashi Kumar Paswan, an NIT Jamshedpur graduate, who recruited several MBBS students in some states to execute a widespread paper leak and impersonation scheme.

Police found burnt question papers, which matched the original NEET question paper, and the printer used to distribute the papers. The solvers or impersonators memorised these questions and wrote the exam as proxy candidates in return for hefty sums of money.

Also read NEET was far from fair even before this year's grace marks, paper-leak controversies

Strict measures introduced by Centre

Recently, the Supreme Court, which heard the NTA lapses in NEET 2024, closed the case after the Centre assured it would implement the suggested exam reforms. Following this, the education ministry has been holding a series of meetings with District Magistrates and Superintendents of Police from all states and Union Territories to ensure the smooth conduct of NEET 2025.

Police-escorted logistics -All exam-related materials, including question papers and NEET OMR sheets 2025, will now be transported under police escort, eliminating any possibility of unsupervised handling.

Frisking and surveillance - Multi-layered security checks, frisking by local police, and biometric authentication are now mandatory at all 5,000 exam centres.

Personal inspection - District Magistrates (DMs), Superintendents of Police (SPs), and duty magistrates have been directed to conduct personal inspections at NEET exam centres before and during the test.

Grievance redressal - The NTA has launched a dedicated platform to report impersonation, leaked questions, and suspicious digital content. This initiative falls under the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024, which criminalizes cheating networks and impersonation in high-stakes exams.