NEW DELHI, June 21: The Prime Minister Narendra Modi waited at the Delhi Airport for over 45 minutes on Sunday afternoon after returning from Kolkata to ensure that students appearing for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test – Under Graduate (NEET-UG) re-examination were not inconvenienced in reaching their examination centres in time.
Mr Modi by staying put at the airport ensured that movement of his convoy on the Delhi roads did not held back the traffic movement and caused problems for the candidates in reaching their examination centres.
According to sources, PM Modi arrived at the airport at around 1:15 pm, just 45 minutes before the NEET re-examination was scheduled to begin at 2:00 pm. Instead of proceeding immediately to his residence, he decided to wait at the airport so that traffic restrictions associated with the Prime Ministerial convoy would not affect students travelling to their examination centres.
Millions of students participate in the NEET exam every year, and traffic management in cities on exam day is a significant challenge. In this context, PM Modi’s decision, prioritising student convenience, is being considered an example of administrative sensitivity. Sources said the Prime Minister left the airport shortly after the NEET examination commenced.
The NEET-UG re-examination commenced at 2:00 PM on Sunday under extensive security arrangements across India and overseas centres for more than 22 lakh medical aspirants. The exam is being conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) after the earlier test held on May 3 was cancelled following allegations of a question paper leak, which remains under investigation.
The re-exam will concluded at 5:15 PM, with candidates being given an additional 15 minutes this time. The examination was held at 5,440 centres across 551 cities in India, along with 14 centres abroad. The examination was held in English and 12 Indian languages including Hindi.
To ensure transparency and prevent malpractice, the NTA has implemented unprecedented security measures. More than 95,000 examination rooms were equipped with CCTV surveillance, while 1,38,560 cameras were installed with live feeds being monitored at the national, state, and ministry levels. In addition, 51,311 signal jammers were deployed at examination centres to prevent electronic cheating and maintain the integrity of the test.
The NTA in a post on X said, “Over 20 lakh candidates sat for the NEET (UG) 2026 re-examination across 5,440 centres in India and 14 centres abroad. The paper was administered in 13 languages, including Hindi and English. Today, we look back at the people and the coordination that made that day possible. This was not the National Testing Agency acting alone. It was Team Bharat – a chain of people across the country who showed up so that, for each candidate, the only thing that mattered that morning was the paper in front of them.”
The difficulty level of NEET re-exam 2026 was analysed as moderate. As per the students, Physics was tough, followed by Chemistry and Biology.
NTA is likely to release NEET re-exam answer key by June 28. The candidates can check and download NEET re-exam answer key pdf on the official portal – neet.nta.nic.in. To download NEET re-exam answer key pdf, candidates need to visit the official website – neet.nta.nic.in and click on re-NEET answer key pdf link. NEET re-exam answer key pdf will be available for download, save re-NEET answer key pdf and take a print out. However, a number of unofficial answer keys are already available on various portals.
NEET re-exam result 2026 is likely to be out by July-end.
(Manas Dasgupta)