Meghalaya’s Education Department today stated that it has nothing to do with the allocation of examination centres to students sitting the Common University Entrance Test – Undergraduate (CUET-UG).
In a statement, the department said that the allotment of examination centres is managed entirely by the National Testing Agency (NTA) using an automated software system. Vijay Kumar Mantri, Commissioner and Secretary, stated that this system allocates centres based on the preferences submitted by each candidate.
According to Mantri, candidates are required to indicate four preferred locations and the system assigns a centre strictly from among these choices.
“Therefore, if a student has been allotted a centre outside Meghalaya, it is because they had selected that location as one of their preferences. The state government has no role in the individual allotment of examination centres,” he stated.
Numerous students from Meghalaya have been assigned centres in other North East states, Kolkata and one has even been allotted Port Blair in the Andaman Islands.
The Education Department informed that 12,685 students from Meghalaya have registered for CUET-UG 2025, of which 7,742 candidates have been allotted centres within the two city options in Meghalaya.
This leaves 4,943 candidates and, of these, 4,654 candidates have been allotted centres in Assam (which has five city options) and only 289 candidates outside both Meghalaya and Assam.
All but 93 have been allocated centres in other North East states. Mantri also clarified that the Port Blair student had picked that town as their second choice for examination centre.
He also stated that since the system guarantees allocation from among the four preferred choices provided by each student, the students could have selected one of these five choices to avoid going out of the region.
Reiterating a point made yesterday by the Education Minister, Mantri claimed that the NTA did not inform the state government in advance that there was a shortage of capacity to accommodate all Meghalaya students within the state.
“The matter only came to light at the last moment when several students were allotted centres outside Meghalaya,” he said, adding that, as soon as the issue was brought to the attention of the state government, over 800 additional computer nodes were swiftly identified across various institutions.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the agency responsible for vetting and validating computer-based test centres, is currently undertaking inspections of these additional nodes to gauge their suitability. This process should be complete in a few days.
Meanwhile, the Education Department has acknowledged the support of various schools and colleges across Meghalaya that have come forward to offer their computer labs for the conduct of NTA exams. However, a few institutes have not done so and this has led to the shortfall in available computer-based exam centres.
“This must be understood that extending support to NTA for having more exam centers will greatly help the students of Meghalaya and therefore support of all institutions is pivotal to resolve this issue,” Mantri said.
The NTA has assured that it is confident that all candidates scheduled to appear after May 16, who had opted for centres in Meghalaya but were allotted locations outside the state, will be re-allotted to centres within Meghalaya subject to availability and completion of the validation process. This will be confirmed by the Education Department tomorrow or the day after.
