cuet: Glitches continue in CUET-UG as more exams get cancelled

Even as the National Testing Agency (NTA) is examining the repeated occurrence of technical glitches and may delist a number of centres, candidates are in panic as the agency hasn’t yet issued the admit cards for the Sunday exam till filing of this report late Friday night. With regards to Friday exams, NTA stated that first slot exams have been postponed in 20 centres and second slot exams were postponed in 30 centres, but no notification has been issued regarding new dates till filing of this report.

On Friday again, candidates returned home dejected after glitches fustrated their attempts. While in many centres the question papers couldn’t get uploaded on the computers, in others candidates got stuck in the middle of the paper either due to frequent disconnection or incomplete downloading of the papers. In total over 10% of the centres were affected.

On Thursday, exams in the first slot (9 am to 12 noon) were postponed in 41 centres spread across 17 states/ UTs. The agency also cancelled the second slots for all of the 489 centres after the general paper couldn’t be uploaded. NTA has also postponed the test in Kerala — scheduled for August 4, 5 and 6 — due to heavy rains and said fresh dates will be announced later.

Ganika, who wants to pursue BA (Hons) Sociology in Delhi University, said: “I came from Chhatarpur (Delhi) to the exam centre in Noida Sector 64 (about 34 km). We were made to sit at the terminals. At 12 PM, we were told that the exam will not be conducted today since there are technical issues. Yesterday, my sister came all the way from Narela (Delhi) to this centre (about 84 km) but had to return due to the same issue. This is the height of mismanagement.”

According to the agency sources, exams in many centres had to be cancelled for two reasons — those where server issues and glitches in downloading of question papers were reported and a few which failed the security protocol.

A senior NTA official said that some centres are now under the scanner as majority of the technical glitches are being reported from these. Moreover, there are also centres which are repeatedly failing the last minute mock test and facing server issues.

“NTA is now examining the centres where technical glitches are being reported. The reports of the observers and centre coordinators are being looked into the probability of the fitness of the centres. If needed these centres would be delisted for future exams,” said the official.

“There are also centres where exams were cancelled ahead of schedule. These centres failed either in the security protocol or in the mock test, which means candidates in these centres in all probability would have faced technical issues,” added the official.

Candidates whose exams are on August 7 took to social media throughout the day tagging NTA over admit card issues. Apart from that, there are candidates who share admit cards on social media claiming that they have been allotted cities they have not opted for.

While NTA expressed confidence that it would be able to accommodate the candidates whose exams were cancelled in the remaining days and slots, sources in the agency said that if necessary it would extend the exam by two to three days.

The NTA is conducting CUET (UG) – 2022 from July 15 to August 20 (excluding the days of other undergraduate examinations, and gazetted holidays) at 489 centres located in 300 cities across India and nine cities outside India.