New Delhi, Oct. 11 -- The National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts some of India's largest entrance examinations, has 16 vacancies among its 39 sanctioned permanent posts, leaving 41% of its core positions unfilled. The post of its director general (DG), who manages day-to-day functioning, was held as an additional charge by officers with other major responsibilities for nearly two years between June 2024 and April 2026, according to a parliamentary committee report tabled in Rajya Sabha on Friday. Flagging its dependence on deputation and private contractors, the 31-member parliamentary committee on education, women, children, youth and sports, headed by Congress MP Mukul Wasnik, called for in-house expertise in examination security, technology and logistics, and said the agency should eventually handle examination logistics itself. The panel met NTA and education ministry officials on May 21, June 1 and July 1, following the cancellation of NEET-UG 2026 on May 12 after at least 120 questions in a guess paper - a compilation of suggested questions based on previous trends and patterns - were found to match the May 3 examination paper. The alleged leak was detected a week after the examination, triggering protests in Parliament and eventually leading to the resignation of then Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan on July 25 after millions of young people, under the Cockroach Janata Party banner, took to the streets. The report called for public disclosure of examination irregularities after the education ministry told the panel that "no paper leak has occurred in an exam conducted by the NTA" between its formation in 2017 and 2025, although there were "malpractice and disruptions". The panel said this assertion was "at variance with the opinion of some Members of the Committee". NTA's annual report for 2024-25 recorded 474 court cases, including 69 in the Supreme Court. Of these, 356 related to NEET-UG 2024. The committee called for public disclosure of irregularities and investigations amid recurring controversies over national-level examinations. It recommended UPSC-style transparency in results, a continuously updated question bank and a research wing to reimagine NTA "not just as a body to administer exams but as a think-tank for all matters and policies relating to examinations". The committee said all 39 permanent posts at NTA were filled through deputation, with officers typically serving two to three years. It recommended that the agency "hire its own officers on a permanent basis", including specialists in psychometrics, examination security, digital infrastructure, data analytics and logistics, rather than relying on a revolving pool of officials. Contractual staff increased from 39 in 2023-24 to 76 in 2025-26, while outsourced personnel numbered 136 in 2025-26. The panel said filling posts through the Central Staffing Scheme did not constitute the "deep institutional capacity-building" required. NTA has advertised specialist positions. The panel said "investment in question banks is the most viable defense against paper leaks in the long-run". It proposed drawing questions digitally close to examinations and having final papers vetted by experts kept under "strict quarantine" until the examination concludes. It recommended involving experts from IITs, AIIMS and IIMs in developing question banks and translations, with conflict-of-interest checks covering links to coaching centres or relatives appearing for examinations. The panel warned that examinations rewarding familiarity with question patterns and shortcuts rather than "genuine conceptual understanding" could deepen socioeconomic inequalities, as affluent students were better placed to afford expensive coaching. NTA's Rs.590-crore revenue surplus accumulated between 2018-19 and 2024-25 could be used to upgrade government-owned computer-based testing (CBT) centres and conduct mock examinations, the report said. The panel proposed a phased transition to CBT backed by 1,000 secure government-run centres, at least one in every district. It also called for financial support for school and college IT labs and mock tests, noting that private centres had "often proved to be a weak link in examination security". The committee called for NTA to refocus on higher-education entrance tests, noting that it continued to conduct recruitment examinations "that are not connected" to admissions. The K Radhakrishnan expert committee had recommended limiting NTA's mandate to entrance examinations until it demonstrated capacity for additional functions. HT reported on July 28 that only 57 of the panel's 101 recommendations had been fully implemented, with another 10 partially implemented. Once its digital infrastructure matures, NTA should move towards computer-adaptive testing, in which artificial intelligence draws questions from a large bank, adapts them to candidates' aptitude and normalises scores by difficulty. "There will be no standard question paper that can be leaked," the report said. However, it flagged hacking risks, citing a CBI-investigated attempt during JEE-Main 2021, and called for an in-house cybersecurity team and AI tools to detect anomalous response patterns. The committee also recommended exploring reasonable upper-age and attempt limits for major examinations, including NEET-UG, in consultation with the health ministry and other stakeholders. It noted that NEET has neither an upper-age limit nor an attempt cap, citing candidates above 70, and suggested UGC-NET could be exempted. It also sought adequate state government representation on NTA's governing body and a research wing staffed by education researchers to assess whether NEET, CUET and UGC-NET meet their intended objectives....