An agency that decides where 1.2 crore candidates a year will study has 23 officers in position, all of them on loan from somewhere else.
That is the single most arresting finding in the 382nd Report of the Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports, presented to the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha on 9 October 2026. The Committee, chaired by Shri Mukul Wasnik, MP (Rajya Sabha), examined the "Reforms and Strengthening of the National Testing Agency (NTA)", pertaining to the Department of Higher Education. It adopted the report at its meeting on 25 August 2026.
Most coverage of this report will be about examination leaks. The more durable story is institutional: what kind of body the NTA actually is, and to whom it answers.
What a Standing Committee is, and what it can do
There are 24 Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committees (DRSCs), covering all Union ministries and departments between them. Each has 31 members — 21 from the Lok Sabha and 10 from the Rajya Sabha — nominated by the Speaker and the Chairman respectively. The term of office does not exceed one year.
The present configuration dates from a restructuring in July 2004, when the number of DRSCs was raised from 17 to 24 and the size of each was reduced from 45 members (30 from the Lok Sabha, 15 from the Rajya Sabha) to 31. Some are serviced by the Lok Sabha Secretariat and some by the Rajya Sabha Secretariat; this one is a Rajya Sabha committee, which is why its report was presented to the Chairman and released through the Rajya Sabha Secretariat.
Their functions are specific: examine the demands for grants of the ministries allotted to them, consider bills referred to them, examine annual reports, and consider long-term policy documents. Two limits are worth memorising, because they are exactly what examiners test:
- They shall not consider matters of day-to-day administration of the related ministries or departments.
- Their reports shall not suggest anything in the nature of a cut motion.
And the structural point: a DRSC reports to the House. It does not direct a ministry. Its observations are recommendations, which the government may accept, accept in part, or decline — with the political cost of declining being the only sanction. That is the frame within which everything below should be read.
The Committee did what a committee does: it took evidence. It heard the Secretary of the Department of Higher Education, the Secretary of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the Chairperson and the Director General of the NTA, and Dr K. Radhakrishnan, former Secretary of the Department of Space, who had chaired the High-Level Committee of Experts on examination reform.
The question the report is really asking
The NTA was set up in 2017 as a society registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860. That is an ordinary legal vehicle — the same statute under which a school trust or a research association registers. It is not a statute of its own, and it creates no office with a fixed tenure, no mandated reporting to Parliament, and no statutory duties enforceable against the body.
Set that against the other bodies that run high-stakes public selection in India:
- The Union Public Service Commission is a constitutional body under Article 315, with members whose removal is restricted and whose annual report is laid before Parliament under Article 323.
- The Staff Selection Commission functions as a government body under the Department of Personnel and Training.
- The National Testing Agency is a society.
Yet the NTA conducts JEE (Main), NEET-UG, UGC-NET and CUET, among others — examinations for which, the Committee records, about 1.2 crore students sit annually. It is, in the Committee's own word, the gateway to the higher education system.
Hence recommendation 10.1, which is the most consequential paragraph in the report: the NTA's organising structure should be finalised so that its resources and accountability structures correspond to its responsibilities, and in doing so the Department should introduce an appropriate Parliamentary framework that ensures the NTA's accountability to Parliament.
A committee of Parliament has looked at a society conducting the country's most consequential examinations and concluded that the legal form does not match the function. That is an argument about institutional design, and it is a far more examinable proposition than any individual leak.
The Committee also noted what the scale demands: successfully conducting an all-India examination like NEET requires whole-of-government mobilisation across Union, State and local levels. A society has no authority to mobilise a district administration. It has to ask.
Why "build a question bank" is a technical recommendation, not a platitude
The Committee's second recommendation reads like administrative advice. It is in fact a precise response to a diagnosed failure mode, and the reasoning deserves to be followed step by step.
Repeated use of the same question sets, or the practice of having examiners set fresh papers every year, is itself a risk to integrity — because in both cases a small number of identifiable people know the contents of a paper in advance. The Committee's answer is a large, diverse and continuously updated question bank, from which final papers are assembled using digital tools so that no question-setter has advance knowledge of what will appear. Vetting is to be done by experts, who are then to be kept under strict quarantine and sequestration until the examination concludes.
The crucial observation is the one about format. In a computer-based test, question papers no longer have to be printed and physically transported to centres. Therefore, the Committee says, there is no compulsion to set papers long in advance, and the final paper should be assembled very close to the examination.
Read that against what happened this year. NEET-UG 2026, held on 3 May, was cancelled on 12 May 2026 after allegations of a question-paper leak, affecting roughly 22 lakh candidates, and the matter was referred to the Central Bureau of Investigation. Reporting on the preliminary findings indicated that the leaked material may have originated at a printing press — a claim that remains under investigation and should be treated as such.
If that holds, the Committee's recommendation targets the failure precisely. A printed paper creates two vulnerabilities that a bank-assembled digital paper does not: a time window between finalisation and examination, and a physical supply chain of presses, packers, transporters and strongrooms, each a point of access. Shrinking the window and removing the chain is not a security improvement at the margin; it removes the attack surface.
The Committee added a further safeguard that is easy to overlook: the experts drawn on for question-setting and translation must come from established institutions — IITs, AIIMSs, IIMs — and the NTA must verify their track record and rule out conflicts of interest before recruiting them, specifically naming owners or faculty of private coaching centres and family members sitting the examination. India's coaching industry is large enough that this is a real exposure, not a hypothetical one. It is also the first thing a candidate should notice about the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024: that statute criminalises conduct after the fact, while a question bank changes the design so that there is less to criminalise.
The finding that explains the other findings
The Committee notes the measures the NTA has taken since 2024 — State and District Level Coordination Committees, biometric authentication, mobile jammers, AI-based CCTV analysis — and calls them welcome. Then it makes the observation that gives the report its force: the cancellation of NEET-UG 2026 despite all these measures shows the need for greater procedural and institutional reform.
Procedural layers were added. The examination still had to be cancelled. The Committee's explanation is staffing.
Of 39 sanctioned positions in the NTA, only 23 officers are in position — a vacancy of 41% — and those 23 are on deputation. The Radhakrishnan Committee, constituted on 22 June 2024 after the previous year's NEET controversy and reporting in October 2024 with 101 recommendations, had specifically recommended permanent NTA staff in place of a deputation-heavy structure, along with at least 1,000 secure testing centres prioritising government institutions and a steering committee under the Ministry to track implementation.
Two years later the structure is still deputation-based and two-fifths empty. That is the connective tissue of the whole report: a society with no permanent cadre, running examinations for 1.2 crore candidates, acquiring new procedural controls faster than it acquires the people to operate them. Deputation means every officer's career prospects lie in a parent department elsewhere; no one's professional future depends on this institution working in ten years' time.
The Committee's third recommendation follows from this and is usually dismissed as soft. It asks the NTA to cultivate a culture in which every official, from the Director General to the centre invigilator, sees themselves as a guardian of examination integrity rather than a jobholder in an administrative system. On a staff that is 41% vacant and wholly on loan, that is less a motivational sentiment than a statement of the problem.
The Committee's last practical point concerns communication. The NTA's engagement with candidates is, it says, largely one-way — portals and notifications — and its feedback channels are not widely known. It recommends that such channels be built into ordinary functioning and publicised among students, parents and teachers. After a cancellation affecting 22 lakh candidates, that is about rebuilding trust, and it sits alongside the consultative turn visible in the task force that opened public examination reform to candidate suggestions.
What this report can and cannot do
It cannot change the NTA's legal form. It cannot create posts or fill them. It cannot direct the Department of Higher Education to do anything at all.
What it can do is place a specific, documented set of findings on the record of the House — the 41% vacancy, the deputation structure, the unimplemented Radhakrishnan recommendations, the cancellation that happened anyway — and ask the government to respond. The Committee's recommendations go to the House; the government files an action-taken reply; the gap between the two becomes a matter of public record that the next committee can examine. That slow, unglamorous ratchet is what parliamentary oversight consists of in a system where committees recommend and the executive decides.
For a candidate, the lesson is to read the report as a polity document. The examination story is the occasion. The content is the mismatch between what an institution does and the legal form in which it was created — and that is a question that recurs across the Indian state, wherever a society or a mission or a special purpose vehicle has grown into a function that looks statutory.
🔑 Revision block
- What: The 382nd Report of the DRSC on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports, chaired by Mukul Wasnik, MP (RS), on Reforms and Strengthening of the NTA, presented to the Chairman, Rajya Sabha on 9 October 2026; adopted 25 August 2026.
- DRSC system: 24 committees, 31 members each — 21 Lok Sabha + 10 Rajya Sabha, nominated by the Speaker and the Chairman; term not exceeding one year; restructured in July 2004 from 17 committees of 45 members.
- DRSC limits: may not examine day-to-day administration; reports may not suggest anything in the nature of a cut motion; they report to the House, and their recommendations are not binding.
- NTA's form: set up 2017 as a society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 — contrast UPSC (constitutional, Article 315; report laid before Parliament under Article 323) and SSC.
- Scale: conducts JEE (Main), NEET-UG, UGC-NET, CUET; about 1.2 crore candidates annually.
- Key recommendation: a Parliamentary framework for the NTA's accountability to Parliament, with resources matched to responsibilities.
- Paper security: a large, continuously updated question bank; final papers assembled digitally close to the examination; vetters quarantined; experts from IITs/AIIMSs/IIMs screened for conflict of interest.
- Why CBT changes the logic: no printing or transport means no reason to finalise papers long in advance — removing both the time window and the physical supply chain.
- The staffing finding: 39 sanctioned posts, 23 in position — 41% vacant, all on deputation, two years after the Radhakrishnan Committee (constituted 22 June 2024; reported October 2024; 101 recommendations) asked for permanent staff.
- The Committee's own counter-example: NEET-UG 2026 was cancelled despite SLCCs, DLCCs, biometrics, jammers and AI-based CCTV analysis.
- Exam hook: a recommendation of a Standing Committee binds nobody. Its force is that the finding is on the record of the House and the government must reply.
🎯 Practice MCQs
Q1. The 382nd Report presented on 9 October 2026 dealt with: (a) Implementation of the National Education Policy 2020 (b) Reforms and strengthening of the National Testing Agency (c) Functioning of the University Grants Commission (d) Regulation of private coaching centres
→ (b) The report, by the DRSC on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports, concerned reform of the NTA under the Department of Higher Education.
Q2. Each Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee consists of: (a) 31 members — 21 from Lok Sabha and 10 from Rajya Sabha (b) 45 members — 30 from Lok Sabha and 15 from Rajya Sabha (c) 30 members — 20 from Lok Sabha and 10 from Rajya Sabha (d) 22 members — 15 from Lok Sabha and 7 from Rajya Sabha
→ (a) 31 members since the July 2004 restructuring. The 45-member figure was the earlier configuration, when there were 17 such committees.
Q3. Which of the following is a DRSC barred from doing? (a) Examining the demands for grants of its ministries (b) Considering bills referred to it (c) Examining annual reports of its ministries (d) Considering matters of day-to-day administration
→ (d) The rules expressly exclude day-to-day administration, and also bar reports from suggesting anything in the nature of a cut motion.
Q4. The legal form of the National Testing Agency is: (a) A constitutional body (b) A statutory corporation (c) A society registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 (d) A company under Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013
→ (c) It was set up in 2017 as a registered society, which is the basis of the Committee's concern about accountability.
Q5. The Committee's recommendation on question papers was that they should be: (a) Assembled digitally from a large question bank close to the examination date (b) Set by a single committee of examiners a year in advance (c) Printed at government presses under police guard (d) Published after the examination for public scrutiny
→ (a) Because a computer-based test needs no printing or transport, papers can be finalised late, with vetters quarantined until the examination ends.
Q6. Approximately how many candidates sit NTA-conducted examinations annually, per the report? (a) 60 lakh (b) 1.2 crore (c) 2.5 crore (d) 40 lakh
→ (b) About 1.2 crore, across JEE (Main), NEET-UG, UGC-NET, CUET and others.
Q7. On staffing, the Committee found that of the NTA's sanctioned positions: (a) All were filled, but by contract staff (b) About 10% were vacant (c) Only 23 of 39 were in position, a vacancy of 41%, all on deputation (d) The sanctioned strength had never been notified
→ (c) A finding that directly contradicts the Radhakrishnan Committee's recommendation for permanent staff rather than a deputation-heavy structure.
Q8. The High-Level Committee of Experts on examination reform was chaired by: (a) Nandan Nilekani (b) Biswanath Goldar (c) Mukul Wasnik (d) K. Radhakrishnan
→ (d) Dr K. Radhakrishnan, former Secretary of the Department of Space, whose committee reported in October 2024 with 101 recommendations.
Q9. The constitutional provision under which the UPSC's annual report is laid before Parliament is: (a) Article 323 (b) Article 315 (c) Article 324 (d) Article 320
→ (a) Article 315 constitutes the Commission; Article 323 provides for its report to be presented. The contrast with a registered society is the point of the comparison.
Q10. The force of a Standing Committee report lies principally in the fact that: (a) Its recommendations are binding on the ministry concerned (b) The findings are placed on the record of the House and the government must respond (c) It can move a cut motion against the ministry's demands (d) It can direct the appointment of officers to the body examined
→ (b) Committees recommend; the executive decides. The report's value is the documented finding and the required reply.
📋 How this gets asked (PYQ pattern)
Parliamentary committee questions are among the most reliably set items in the polity section, and they come in four recognisable shapes.
The first is arithmetic: how many DRSCs, how many members, in what ratio, nominated by whom, for how long. Twenty-four committees, thirty-one members, twenty-one and ten, Speaker and Chairman, one year. The 2004 restructuring is a favourite distractor because the old numbers — 17 committees, 45 members — are still in circulation in older notes.
The second is the limits. A question will assert that a committee examined the day-to-day administration of a ministry, or that its report recommended a cut motion, and ask whether that is correct. Both are barred. This is the single highest-frequency trap in the topic.
The third is classification. Candidates are asked to distinguish a Standing Committee from an Ad hoc Committee, a Financial Committee (Public Accounts, Estimates, Public Undertakings) from a DRSC, or to identify which House services a given committee. Keep the families separate in your head.
The fourth, and the one that rewards reading an actual report, is the status of a recommendation. A committee reports to the House; the government replies; nothing is compelled. Papers test this with a statement asserting that committee recommendations are binding, and the correct answer is always that they are not.
For a written answer, the proposition to carry away is the institutional one, and it generalises well beyond examinations: when a body's function grows faster than its legal form, accountability goes missing in the gap. The NTA conducts the country's largest selection examinations as a registered society with 23 officers on loan. Being able to state that, and to say why a statutory form would change it, demonstrates an understanding of administrative structure — and that is the question behind the question. The broader context of a higher education system at 30% gross enrolment is what makes the gateway worth this much attention.
Preparing for CDS/OTA? With any committee report, note four things: which committee, which House it reports to, what it found, and what force the finding has. The fourth is where most answers go wrong. Build the base with our CDS/OTA study material and the polity section, follow the daily CDS current affairs, and prepare with our faculty in the upcoming Cavalier courses in Delhi.
✍️ Written by Hitendra Deswal — Faculty, Polity & International Relations, at The Cavalier. Reviewed by the Cavalier Faculty Desk.