CUET aspirants in Delhi left in the lurch after last-minute change of exam date

Krishna is not alone. Last-minute changes to the CUET-UG schedule triggered panic and frustration among aspirants who were planning to write the exam.

Several students The Indian Express spoke to Wednesday blamed the National Testing Agency (NTA) for its “mismanagement” due to which they are busy figuring out how to reach their new examination centre “rather than focusing on their preparation”.

Several students also stated that on Tuesday night, when they tried to download their admit cards, they found that the NTA website for CUET had crashed.

The NTA on Tuesday deferred the third edition of the CUET-UG for four subjects – Chemistry, Biology, English and General Test — to May 29, 2024 across Delhi. The exam was earlier scheduled on May 15.

Nupur Varshney, 18, a resident of Swasth Vihar, said she found out about the exam being postponed at 11.30 pm on Tuesday through the media.

“Our Chemistry exam on May 15 got cancelled, but my Physics and Mathematics exams on May 16 are still on. Had we known about the cancellation earlier, we would have prioritised preparing for the latter two,” she added.

Another student, who wished to not be named, was earlier allotted a centre in Faridabad but now has been granted New Delhi.

“We did not know there was a change in the centre until we got our new admit cards…It would have been a little easier, had this been conveyed to us earlier,” the student added.

The NTA attributed the postponement – which came just a few hours before the exam was scheduled across the country on Wednesday – to “manpower issues” caused due to the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.

Speaking to The Indian Express, University Grants Commission Chairman M Jagadesh Kumar said, “Due to unavoidable reasons, the four papers scheduled on May 15 have to be rescheduled in the centres of Delhi city only. NTA has done this in the best interests of the students. The revised admit cards will be issued.”

He did not elaborate on the “unavoidable reasons”.

According to an NTA official, “CUET-UG is held at a large scale. We had selected several exam centres and deployed invigilators for this process. However, we were facing issues in getting an appropriate number of invigilators in exam centres in Delhi for the May 15 exam due to the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. So, NTA has decided to conduct the May 15 exam after elections, i.e. May 29.”
Meanwhile, examinations scheduled on other dates (May 16,17 and 18) at all centres, including those in Delhi, will be held as per the original plan, the NTA said.

On May 13, the NTA had issued admit cards for CUET-UG 2024. However, later that evening, it issued another notice asking candidates to download them only after the evening of May 14.

Delhi votes on May 25.