CISF to guard NTA premises, stricter monitoring for confidential areas

The National Testing Agency (NTA), which recently moved its operations to a new office following a huge controversy over NEET paper leak and administrative lapses, will now be guarded by CISF to ensure foolproof arrangements in the “confidential areas” on its premises, officials said.

The move comes in the wake of the question paper leak of medical entrance exam NEET-UG earlier this year, which had sparked nationwide student protests and led to the resignation of then Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

A day after Pradhan’s resignation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had 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. The panel is yet to submit its report. According to a CBI chargesheet, which identified three subject experts as primary sources of the paper leak, there was no checking or frisking of experts during entry or exit from the confidential section at the NTA, allowing the experts to take briefs from designed question papers on small chits, made out of plain sheets provided to them for rough work and translation.

Set up in 2017 under the Ministry of Education to conduct fair, transparent and standardised examinations, the NTA was so far operating from its office in Okhla.

“A dedicated over 55,000 square feet office space has been allotted in the Government of India Press Building on Minto Road. The fifth floor and parts of the fourth and sixth floors of the said building have been allotted to the National Testing Agency. Confidential and sensitive operations have been shifted in the last one month to the newly allotted building,” a senior official told PTI.

The CBI report also noted that the work of the three accused experts went unnoticed as there was no dedicated CCTV live feed monitoring control room in the NTA office in the national capital.

On the plan for monitoring at the new premises, the official said, “Confidential areas have been demarcated in the building where the movement and operations will be strictly monitored to ensure that a foolproof system is in place. The Home Ministry has approved Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) security cover for the premises,” the official added.

Sharing the details, the official said 39 CISF personnel have been deployed who will be responsible for security, appropriate access-control and screening measures, including frisking using X-ray baggage screening machine and Door Frame Metal Detectors (DFMDs).

“The CISF is being deployed at suitable locations at all the entry and exit points for monitoring and regulation of access into the confidential area,” the official added.

Other parts of the Government of India Press Building are already under CISF cover. While no educational institution in the country has CISF security, the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), which conducts the recruitment exams, is guarded by CISF.

A similar NEET paper leak in 2024 led to the setting up of a high-level committee headed by former ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan.

The panel made detailed recommendations for enhanced security controls for examination-critical systems covering question paper systems, candidate registration, fee payment, admit card systems, computer-based testing platforms, OMR processing, normalisation engines and result systems.

However, following the 2026 paper leak, the Supreme Court reprimanded the NTA, saying “it has not learnt its lessons”.

“Arrangements are being made in mission mode for establishing strict access controls, encryption standards, immutable logging and tamper-evident storage for all examination-critical workloads.

“Running security readiness reviews of all examination-supporting systems before each examination cycle in coordination with NTA’s technology function and coordinating with NTA’s test-security function on the technical security of examination day workflows -- including biometric authentication, face-matching, CCTV systems and live monitoring infrastructure -- are among the action items being worked upon,” the official said.

The agency is also working on maintaining an examination-specific cyber-incident response readiness on examination days, with elevated SOC monitoring and rapid-response capability.

To strengthen information security, the NTA has designated a dedicated chief information security officer (CISO), the official said.

“The position of general manager and CISO has been advertised, and the selection process is at an advanced stage. Independent third-party cyber-security audits by CERT-In and C-DAC empanelled agencies continue to be undertaken,” the official added.