NTA gets new officers amid exam overhaul

The Centre has started to strengthen the examination system and address concerns raised over the integrity of tests. The Centre has appointed five officers to the National Testing Agency (NTA) under the Department of Higher Education. With the latest appointments, the number of directors appointed to the NTA has risen to five. IPS officer Ravi Kumar Singh and IAS officer Prasanna Venkatesh V have been appointed directors at NTA, while Amit Samdariya, a 2016-batch Indian Revenue Service (C&IT) officer, will join as joint director. IRS officer Anshuman Sharma, a 2005-batch officer, has been appointed Joint Secretary.
The induction comes days after NTA began a wider revamp that includes removing around 600 experts from its examination panels, onboarding a fresh set of specialists and introducing a fourtier scrutiny mechanism for question papers. The agency is also strengthening examination security, recruiting additional officials and moving to new premises where security is proposed to be reinforced with CISF deployment.
Earlier, in 2025, Pawan Kumar Sharma and Vijay Kumar Vinayakrao Patil were appointed as directors, while Ashish Gupta was appointed as Joint Director on March 27, 2025.On May 16, 2026, Akash Jain and Aditya Rajendra Bhojgadhiya were appointed as Joint Directors, while Anuja Bapat and Ruchita Vij were appointed as Joint Secretaries. The fresh appointments are part of an overhaul of the agency's examination system. They align with the recommendations of the October 2024 Radhakrishnan Committee to restructure the NTA by strengthening the testing agency's permanent workforce. The government has created 16 new posts, eight each at the director and joint director levels.
NTA has been under sustained pressure since the NEET-UG paper leak controversy, which triggered nationwide protests and intensified scrutiny of how high-stakes examinations are secured and administered.
The seven-member committee headed by K Radhakrishnan, which analysed the reasons for the NEET-UG 2024 leak, had recommended the hiring of permanent staff within the NTA to bring in more accountability. A parliamentary panel committee in December 2025 had called for strengthening the organisation internally. The Supreme Court also had recently questioned why the NTA operated with only a small team of 30 to 40 officials.