NTA is hiring ‘untainted’ Subject Matter Experts. What else is needed to plug paper leaks?

Every few months, India relives the same headline in a different city: a trunk of question papers goes missing, a gang of “solvers” is arrested, a Minister announces a re-test. Then the story fades until the next exam cycle brings it back.

The latest instalment came this month, when the National Testing Agency (NTA) invited applications to replace the 600 subject-matter experts, translators and reviewers it removed after the NEET-UG 2024 paper leak, some of whom were allegedly linked to the leak.

It is tempting to read this as a story about a few dishonest individuals. However, it is more honest to read it as a story about a process that gave a handful of people too much unsupervised access. An exam is not one event; it is a relay of custodians, including writers, moderators, printers, transporters, centre staff, evaluators, and every handover is a place the chain can break.