Days after the results of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET UG 2020) were published, several candidates from across the country have flagged possible discrepancies in their marks. A few candidates had also reportedly contacted the National Testing Agency (NTA) to report the same, but say they haven’t received any support.
The results of NEET 2020 were declared on October 16 and recorded a pass percentage of 56.44%. On October 18, two medical students from Coimbatore and Ariyalur in Tamil Nadu had alleged that their Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) had been doctored and asked for revaluation, with one of them approaching the NTA to intervene.
Speaking to TNM, Vidya*, mother of a NEET aspirant from Rajasthan, whose final score was in the range of 210 out of 720 said that as soon as the test was over, they had run over the questions again to get an estimate of her son’s marks. “After the test, when he came back and marked the questions again, he scored 504. We were very sure that he would get a score around that. I have faith in him. But the final score was somewhere in the 210 marks range,” she said. Her son was writing NEET the second time this year and had taken coaching from a renowned private institute.
Vidya had received a copy of her son’s NEET exam OMR sheet from the NTA on October 7. “I felt something was not right. My son’s signature seemed different in it, and the marks were way too less, based on the markings on that OMR sheet,” she alleged.
Another NEET aspirant told TNM that she had expected to score 400 marks as per the answer key released by the NTA but ended up getting around 150. These are just a few of allegations being raised by students about discrepancies in the NEET exam and issues with the copies of their OMR answer sheets that NTA had emailed the candidates and their final scores.
When Vidya contacted the NTA to know about how to proceed with filing a complaint, she said that she received a response along the lines of the NTA being helpless at that point of time. “When I contacted NTA, they asked us why we didn’t challenge the OMR discrepancy earlier. They told us we should have raised the issue within 24 hours of receiving the OMR copy,” she said, adding that many parents didn’t even know about the procedure of raising a complaint within a given time limit.
“When people like us living in the city were in the dark, I was scared to think of many such aspirants from the villages. What will they do?” she questioned.
Several attempts made by TNM to contact NTA did not succeed.
(*Names changed on request)