Over 20.8 Lakh Students Appear For NEET-UG 2025 Across 5,400 Centres Amid Sporadic Protests & Arrests

New Delhi: More than 20.8 lakh students appeared for the medical entrance exam NEET-UG on Sunday at more than 5,400 centres under strict security measures amid sporadic incidents of protest and arrest.

More than 22.7 lakh candidates had registered for the exam, which was also conducted in 14 cities abroad.

National Testing Agency (NTA) officials said more than 20.8 lakh candidates appeared for the exam.

Mock drills were held at all National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) centres on Saturday to ensure smooth conduct of the nationwide exam. Most of the centres were located in government and government-aided schools, colleges, universities and institutions.

While no untoward incidents have been reported so far, members of the Brahmin community held a protest outside an exam centre in Karnataka’s Kalaburagi, demanding accountability after some students from the community were asked to remove their ‘janivara (sacred thread)’ before entering the exam hall.

About The Cases

Three men were detained by the Special Operations Group of the Rajasthan Police for allegedly trying to dupe a candidate of Rs 40 lakh by promising him the question paper.

In Bhubaneshwar, police arrested four members of an interstate gang for allegedly taking money from aspirants for admission in a medical college.

In Delhi, some students at a centre in Jahangirpuri claimed their biometric authentication could not be completed.

“There were three layers of monitoring today — at the district, state, and central levels. To ensure smooth and secure conduct of the exam, mock drills were conducted at all centres. These drills helped in testing readiness in terms of functionality of mobile signal jammers, availability of adequate manpower for frisking, and biometric authentication procedures,” an official said.

“A centralised control room under the Union Ministry of Education, with representatives from the ministries of health, defence, home affairs and electronics and information technology, was set up for monitoring all activities on the ground,” the official added.

Transporting question papers under police escort, monitoring coaching centres to identify organised cheating rackets, multi-layered frisking by district police in addition to designated security personnel at the exam centres were among the steps taken by the NTA, led by the education ministry.

The strict measures came a year after alleged irregularities, including paper leaks, were flagged in NEET-UG that put the exam’s integrity under scanner.

In a crackdown on fake claims about NEET-UG, the NTA identified 160 Telegram and 30 Instagram channels involved in spreading false information. The NTA’s dedicated portal for receiving such concerns flagged more than 2300 claims of paper leaks for the exam.

In a decisive move to protect the exam process’ integrity, the agency had earlier this week initiated action against certain Telegram and Instagram channels that claimed to have access to the question paper.

“These cases have been escalated to the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. Requests have been sent to both platforms to take down the fraudulent content and share administrator details for further legal action,” an official said.

The NTA also requested Telegram and Instagram to immediately take down the channels to prevent the spread of falsehood and unnecessary panic among the aspirants.

The education ministry had held a series of meetings with district magistrates and superintendents of police from all states and Union territories to ensure there were no lapses in the conduct of the exam.

Under scrutiny over last year’s irregularities in NEET-UG and the PhD entrance exam, the Centre set up a panel to ensure “transparent, smooth and fair” conduct of exams by the NTA.

The University Grants Commission-National Eligibility Test (UGC-NET) was cancelled last year after the ministry received input that its integrity was compromised. Both matters are being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Two other exams — CSIR-UGC NET and NEET-PG — were cancelled at the last moment as a preemptive step.

Meanwhile, aspirants in Rajasthan’s Kota — a hub of coaching for competitive exams — termed the exam tough and lengthy and many expressed fear that they might miss the cutoff.

The exam was the toughest in the history of NEET-UG. It is possible that the cutoff will be low because the exam was tough and lengthy, said ALLEN Career Institute, Kota, director Brajesh Maheshwari.

Physics and chemistry sections were filled with multi-step questions, cumbersome calculations and situation-based reasoning. Many students reported that time management became a hurdle due to the complex nature of the problems, experts said.

Motion Education coaching institute CEO Nitin Vijay said, “NEET-UG in 2025 saw a definite change in philosophy. It is no longer a question of memorising lines from textbooks. The exam called for maturity, clarity of thought.”

(Except for the headline, this article has not been edited by FPJ’s editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)