Centre appoints key officials in NTA amid NEET paper leak row

New Delhi: The Centre has appointed officials to key posts in the National Testing Agency (NTA), which has been facing flak for issues related to the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) paper leak and other concerns.

Anshuman Sharma, a 2005-batch Indian Revenue Service (Income Tax) officer, was on Friday appointed as Joint Secretary in the NTA for a tenure of five years, an order issued by the Personnel Ministry said.

Sathiya S, Ravi Kumar Singh and Prasanna Venkatesh V have been appointed as directors in the examination body.


Sathiya is an IRS (Income Tax) officer, Singh belongs to the Indian Police Service and Prasanna is an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer.

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Amit Samdariya, a 2016-batch Indian Revenue Service (Customs and Indirect Taxes) officer, has been selected for appointment as joint director in the NTA, another order issued on August 27 by the Personnel Ministry said.

The move assumes significance as the Centre has recently announced a comprehensive overhaul of the examination system at the NTA, including implementing a four-tier paper checking process, removing 600 experts, and onboarding domain specialists, among other changes.

The move followed a row over the NEET paper leak, that led to resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan as the Education Minister last month.

Pradhan resigned on July 25 amid Cockroach Janta Party-led protests across the country seeking his ouster over the NEET paper leak issue. The 36-day protest had ended with his resignation.

A day after Pradhan's resignation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the constitution of a high-powered task force headed by Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani to recommend reforms to make the exam system leakproof.

Also read: Nandan Nilekani panel seeks public suggestions to overhaul exam system

The task force on Friday invited suggestions on comprehensive reforms in public examinations, including measures to fix accountability and strengthen institutional arrangements.