The Government's Own Committee Told It How to Fix NEET.

The Reform That Was Supposed to Prevent This Crisis

In June 2024, after the NEET-UG paper leak scandal that consumed an entire parliamentary session, the Modi government did something it rarely does: it acknowledged the problem and appointed someone credible to fix it.

Dr. K. Radhakrishnan — former Chairman of ISRO, the man who led the Mars Orbiter Mission — was appointed to chair a High-Level Committee on Examination Reforms (HLCE). His mandate: review the National Testing Agency's operations, identify every vulnerability, and recommend a comprehensive overhaul.

The committee submitted its report in October 2024. It contained 101 recommendations covering examination operations, data security, institutional restructuring, candidate authentication, and oversight mechanisms.

In May 2026, Radhakrishnan told the Supreme Court via affidavit that "a majority of recommendations" had been implemented.

In July 2026, students are at Jantar Mantar. Tear gas has been fired. Parliament is stalled. The education minister is under siege. And the demand that started the CJP movement — accountability for NEET irregularities — exists because the problem the committee was supposed to fix has not been fixed.

Here is the scorecard: what the committee recommended, what was implemented, and what was not.

The 12 Reform Areas — Implementation Status

1. Restructure NTA Into an Autonomous Body

Recommended: Transform NTA from a government-dependent testing agency into a professionally managed, autonomous institution with dedicated verticals for operations, technology, security, R&D, psychometrics, and governance.

Status: ⚠️ Partial. Organisational restructuring into functional verticals was announced. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education (June 2026) acknowledged the restructuring but urged the NTA to "expedite implementation" — indicating it is not complete. NTA's operational autonomy from the Education Ministry remains undefined.

The gap: Structural restructuring is the foundation for every other reform. If NTA is not autonomous, its leadership can be influenced, its decisions can be overridden, and its accountability mechanisms can be diluted. This is the recommendation that enables all others — and it is incomplete.

2. Recruit Specialised Manpower

Recommended: Hire domain experts in cybersecurity, data analytics, AI, psychometrics, and assessment. Reduce dependence on temporary and outsourced staff.

Status: ⚠️ Partial. Some recruitment has occurred, but the Parliamentary Standing Committee's June 2026 report noted that NTA's staffing model still relies heavily on contractual and deputation-based appointments. The specialised verticals (cybersecurity, psychometrics) are not fully staffed.

The gap: An examination agency that tests 3 crore students annually cannot run on temporary staff. Every outsourced function is a potential leak point. Every contractual employee is a potential vulnerability.

3. Secure Examination Infrastructure

Recommended: Build permanent institutional linkages with state governments, district administrations, and police. Establish a Secure Test Administration Apparatus.

Status: ✅ Substantially implemented. State-Level Coordination Committees (SLCCs) and District-Level Coordination Committees (DLCCs) are now functional. 99.5% of NEET-UG 2026 examination centres were government institutions. City coordinators were drawn from government schools and Kendriya Vidyalayas.

What this fixed: Centre-level fraud — fake centres, impersonation at private venues — has been significantly reduced.

4. Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

Recommended: Uniform SOPs for question paper generation, printing, transportation, storage, distribution, candidate verification, incident reporting, and emergency response — for both pen-and-paper and computer-based tests.

Status: ✅ Implemented. Comprehensive SOPs have been developed and deployed. CCTV surveillance, mobile phone jammers, and real-time monitoring are operational at most centres.

5. Technology and Data Security

Recommended: End-to-end encryption of examination material. Strong cybersecurity architecture. Real-time monitoring. Continuous vulnerability assessment.

Status: ⚠️ Partial. Advanced encryption for question paper storage and delivery has been implemented. The DIGI-Exam platform — NTA's secure digital examination infrastructure — has been announced but is in pilot stage in only three states. Full end-to-end digital delivery is not operational nationally.

The gap: If question papers are encrypted in storage but still physically transported to some centres, the weakest link determines the system's security — not the strongest. Partial encryption is not encryption.

6. Candidate Authentication

Recommended: Aadhaar-linked biometric authentication, facial recognition, AI-assisted identity checks.

Status: ✅ Substantially implemented. Aadhaar-based biometric authentication was deployed for JEE Main from January 2026. Live photography at the application stage is operational for all NTA examinations. Facial biometric matching is being rolled out.

What this fixed: Impersonation — candidates paying others to sit the exam in their place — has been significantly reduced. This was a major vulnerability and the reform has addressed it.

7. Secure Question Paper Handling

Recommended: Move toward encrypted digital transmission. Print only at authorised centres under strict controls. Minimise physical transport of papers.

Status: ⚠️ Partial. Digital delivery has been piloted. But for NEET-UG — which tests 24 lakh candidates at 4,000+ centres simultaneously — the logistics of digital-only delivery have not been resolved at scale. Physical transport continues for a significant proportion of centres.

The gap: Paper leaks happen during transport — the window between printing and delivery. Until digital delivery is universal, this window remains open.

8. Examination Centre Management

Recommended: Rigorous accreditation. Periodic audits. CCTV. Higher security standards. Blacklisting poorly performing centres.

Status: ✅ Substantially implemented. 99.5% government centres. CCTV operational. Mobile jammers deployed. Accreditation processes tightened. The committee called this one of the most visible improvements.

9. Test Indenting Agency Involvement

Recommended: Government departments requesting examinations should work as knowledge and examination partners with NTA on syllabus, question quality, and evaluation.

Status: ⚠️ Framework established, operational depth unclear. The institutional mechanism exists. Whether individual ministries actively collaborate on question quality — or simply outsource to NTA — varies.

10. High-Powered Steering Committee

Recommended: Permanent oversight body to monitor implementation, review NTA performance, and recommend further improvements.

Status: ✅ Constituted. Established on November 14, 2024, chaired by Radhakrishnan himself. Has conducted periodic reviews. Its May 2026 SC affidavit was based on these reviews.

11. Expand Technology Adoption

Recommended: Greater use of computer-based examinations. Hybrid models for large-scale tests. AI-assisted monitoring and anomaly detection.

Status: ⚠️ In progress. DIGI-Exam platform announced. Pilot in three states. AI anomaly detection deployed experimentally. Full-scale computer-based NEET remains a future target — the logistics of testing 24 lakh students simultaneously on computers have not been solved.

12. Transparency and Accountability

Recommended: Grievance redressal mechanism. Better communication with candidates. Public disclosure of processes. Regular external audits.

Status: ⚠️ Partial. Grievance portals exist but response quality is inconsistent. External audits have not been publicly disclosed. Communication with candidates remains a documented pain point — evidenced by the CJP movement itself, which arose partly from students' inability to get clear answers from NTA.

The Scorecard: One Table

Score: 5 substantially implemented. 7 partial or in progress.

The Pattern: What Was Implemented vs What Wasn't

The implemented reforms share one characteristic: they are downstream fixes — improving centres, authenticating candidates, deploying CCTV, coordinating with states. These are important. They have reduced impersonation and centre-level fraud.

The incomplete reforms share a different characteristic: they are upstream fixes — restructuring NTA itself, achieving true operational autonomy, hiring permanent cybersecurity experts, delivering question papers digitally, and conducting transparent external audits. These are the reforms that address the source of paper leaks, not the symptoms.

Paper leaks originate in the question paper lifecycle — generation, encryption, storage, transport, delivery. The reforms that address this lifecycle (digital delivery, end-to-end encryption, secure printing at centres only) are the ones that remain in pilot or partial implementation. The reforms that address what happens after the paper reaches the centre (CCTV, biometrics, jammers) are the ones that are operational.

The system has been hardened at the edges. The core remains vulnerable.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Radhakrishnan Committee?

A seven-member High-Level Committee on Examination Reforms, chaired by former ISRO Chairman Dr. K. Radhakrishnan, constituted in June 2024 to recommend reforms to the NTA after the NEET-UG paper leak scandal. It submitted 101 recommendations in October 2024.

Have the recommendations been implemented?

Partially. Radhakrishnan told the Supreme Court in May 2026 that a "majority" have been implemented. The Squirrels' review finds 5 of 12 reform areas substantially implemented, 7 partial or in progress. Downstream fixes (centres, authentication) are operational. Upstream fixes (NTA autonomy, digital delivery, external audits) are incomplete.

Why did paper leaks continue despite reforms?

The reforms that have been implemented address centre-level fraud and impersonation. The reforms that address the question paper lifecycle — digital delivery, end-to-end encryption, NTA autonomy — remain in pilot or partial stages. Leaks originate in the lifecycle, not at the centre.

The Bottom Line

The government appointed a credible committee. The committee delivered 101 recommendations. The government implemented the easier ones — centres, CCTV, biometrics, state coordination. It has not completed the harder ones — NTA autonomy, digital delivery, end-to-end encryption, external audits, permanent expert staffing.

The result: the examination system is more secure at the point of delivery. It remains vulnerable at the point of origin. Students at Jantar Mantar are protesting because the leaks they experienced came from the upstream vulnerabilities the committee identified — and those vulnerabilities are the ones that remain open, 21 months later.

The Radhakrishnan Committee told the government exactly what to do. The government did half of it. The half it didn't do is the half that matters for paper leaks. And 24 lakh students sit for NEET every year inside a system that is half-reformed — secure at the edges, exposed at the core.