Nilekani panel opens public comments on NTA exam reform through 13 September

The high-powered task force on public examinations, chaired by Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani, has asked students, parents, teachers, institutions and examination bodies to send suggestions by 13 September. The Department of Personnel and Training opened a form at examreforms-taskforce.dopt.gov.in and is also taking notes by email, a toll-free line and WhatsApp, in English, Hindi and regional languages.

The six-member group was set up in July after a year of leaks, cancellations and a retest that hit more than 22 lakh NEET-UG candidates. Beside Nilekani sit former ISRO chairman S. Somanath, former Intelligence Bureau director Tapan Deka, IIT Madras director V. Kamakoti, former school education secretary Anita Karwal and former Bihar chief secretary Amrit Lal Meena. Their brief covers how papers are written, printed, moved and scored; how the National Testing Agency is governed; how technology is used; and how the system treats candidates who sit the tests.

The Economic Times reported that the panel is trying to finish consultations by mid-September and to put a report in front of the government well before its formal end-October deadline, so that changes can be built into the 2027 cycle. The first operational target described in that reporting is a multi-day, multi-shift computer-based NEET-UG, plus money and land for a network of government-run test centres. A previous committee under Randeep Guleria’s successor panel on testing infrastructure, the Radhakrishnan committee, had already recommended 1,000 such centres so that private contractors stop owning the rooms where the country’s medical entrance is held.

That last point is the one candidates will feel. Leaks in recent cycles travelled along the physical chain: a paper printed early, loaded on a truck, stored in a bank locker, opened by a centre superintendent. A computer-based test generated close to the hour, with a unique shuffle for each candidate, makes a stolen PDF worthless. Kamakoti has backed that shift in public. It only works if the machines sit in rooms the state can audit, not in a rented college lab whose local operator holds the admin password.

The consultation list is wide on purpose. DoPT has asked for views on malpractice detection, statutory backing for the NTA, staff and pay inside the agency, accessibility, and “student well-being” through the exam year. Well-being here is not a slogan. It is a response to a cycle in which a cancelled paper leaves a teenager with one more year of coaching fees and no seat. The panel is also looking at whether a single three-hour score should carry as much weight as it does, or whether board marks and a second instrument should sit beside it.

None of this binds the 2026 remaining calendar. UGC-NET results for 84 subjects went up this week, with English, Commerce and Sociology headed for a September re-test after an expert panel found errors. Those papers will still run on the old machinery. The Nilekani clock is set for 2027. That is why the comment window is short. A mid-September close leaves six weeks to write recommendations and a winter to budget for centres, item banks and a legal change to the NTA’s status if the cabinet wants one.

People who send a note should be specific. A paragraph that says “stop leaks” will not move a terms-of-reference document that already has ten heads. A paragraph that names a centre, a vendor, a shift time or a question-bank practice will. The panel has the members to read technical submissions. It has three weeks of open channel. After 13 September the channel closes and the report starts to harden.