Staff reporter
Guwahati: The Higher Education Department, Government of Assam, has constituted a state-level coordination committee to ensure the smooth, fair, and secure conduct of examinations being conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA). The move follows directives from the Department of Higher Education, Government of India, based on recommendations by a high-level committee of experts on reforms in the NTA.
The committee has Madhu Sudan Nath, Secretary, Higher Education Department, as the nodal officer. Other members of the committee include representatives from the state police, NIC, Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau (SIB), and a nodal officer nominated by the Director General, NTA, with provisions for co-opting additional members, if required.
The roles and responsibilities of the state-level coordination committee are:
The committee needs to prepare an integrated strategy to break the nexus of the paper leak mafia.
The NTA official should ensure the safety of the question paper and OMR sheets until the exam is over and the answer sheets and the remaining question papers are deposited safely. Assistance from the state and district administrations will be taken wherever required.
All centres (in the case of CBT) should be sanitized by the third party and rechecked by the NIC team and NTA representatives. This is a sensitive step, as several malpractices have been found due to the nexus of the workforce responsible for sanitisation.
Testing centres should be sealed in the presence of the district administration and police and should be guarded till the centre is de-sealed for the examination in the presence of district administration and NTA officials.
There should be a CCTV monitoring centre at the district level. This should be manned by the NTA and district officials. The CCTV monitoring centre should strictly monitor all the CCTV footage, and it should also be ensured that all the DVRs are being secured and deposited to NTA safely on the day of the examination.
They need to prepare a strategy to maintain law and order during the examination. In case of an emergency, the NTA communication cell should be immediately informed of further directives.
The notification further said that an exam-specific strategy is a must for the major examinations such as JEE, NEET, UGC-NET, CUET, etc., to ensure a fair, transparent, and zero-error examination. Specific briefing is to be given to the district committee to prepare such examinations.
It needs to be ensured that district-level committees are being constituted and operational.
The performance of the district-level committee after every major examination needs to be reviewed.
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