The country’s youth aspiring for coveted professional careers are being traumatised by a corrupt examination system about which the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre appears to have been blissfully uncaring. It would be an understatement to say the government has played with the lives of hundreds of thousands of the nation’s youth by allowing a dubious, corrupt system to have a field day. The ruling BJP has all these years behaved in a way as if the country’s main concern is how to promote one religion and demonise another. The problems of joblessness, poverty, economic disparities between a microscopic minority of super rich and toiling masses forming the majority of the country’s population has been totally ignored.
The cost of living crisis has been cleverly sidestepped by injecting communal thoughts into the body politic. After 10 years of continuous BJP rule the people seem to have finally woken up to the reality or the inanity of highsounding rhetoric about progress and polarisation politics by preventing the BJP from getting a simple majority on its own. The message appears to be that enough is enough. But, how deep the rot has reached is now laid bare by the scandalous leak of question papers and other irregularities committed in holding the NEET-UG and UGC-NET exams.
The government has let the people down by allowing the Director General of the National Testing Agency (NTA) Subodh Kumar Singh to be at the helm for over a year when unscrupulous operators made a mockery of the two examinations through question paper leaks and other fraudulent acts. It is only after protests in several parts of the country and trenchant criticism by the Opposition over alleged irregularities in NEET-UG and the cancellation of UGC-NET that the Centre has removed him from his post. In a statement 22 June the Ministry of Personnel announced that Singh has been replaced by retired IAS officer Pradeep Singh Kharola. Kharola is the Chairman of the India Trade Promotion Organisation and has been given additional charge as DG of NTA “till the appointment of a regular incumbent or until further orders.” The move was taken hours after the government constituted a committee will give recommendations to improve the functioning of the agency and a day before around 1,500 students who had been given grace marks for NEET-UG were scheduled to take a retest. The CSIR UGC NET – scheduled to be held from 25 to 27 June – had also to be postponed due to “logistical reasons” and the NEET-PG exam, slated to be held 23 June, was rescheduled. Capping a day of fast-moving developments, the government handed over the probe into the alleged irregularities, including paper leaks, in the NEET-UG exam to the CBI. The agency is also probing the alleged leaks that led to the cancellation of UGC-NET. Everybody noticed how spokespersons of the Gov’t of India pointedly denied there was any leakage of question papers till 2 days ago. The abrupt volte face was solely due to surfacing of unassailable facts that damned all the idiotic statements that were being repeated endlessly since election results were announced.
This is an old and too familiar game incompetent governments play by setting up committees to probe wrongdoings of colossal proportions and awaiting reports on overhauling the system. It is nothing but a dilatory tactic to let public fury subside and things go back to square one after a period of time since public will have other urgent issues to handle. Let no one believe the phrase ‘public memory is short’. Recent elections proved that is not so.
The constitution of a seven-member committee to look at ways of improving the functioning of NTA also confirms the adage that one becomes wise after the event. The fact that the panel will be headed by a former ISRO chief, while board members will include some high-profile professionals is poor consolation.
The damage has been done and hundreds of thousands of youth have been subjected to excruciating mental agony and the prospect of being cheated by undeserving candidates benefiting from question paper leaks. Government accountability has to be fixed and making a scapegoat of one or two individuals is not the answer. This is especially so when the Prime Minister had many a time in the past boasted that he has his “teams” which run the administration. Wonder which ‘Team’ was responsible for this huge administrative gaffe.