Twenty-two lakh students recently woke up to the news that NEET-UG 2026 has been cancelled and the exam they sat for on May 3 no longer counts. In the past, NEET-UG 2024 has faced similar hits. Such paper leak cases have also occurred across state boards. The examination name changes, but the pattern of the breach remains the same.
The leaks present two hidden costs. One, they have compounding consequences on career trajectories, family finances, and mental health of the youth. Two, the administrative burden on the State exchequer spent on the logistics related to re-examination drains the State systems even further.
While we all have understood the problem, for future-proofing the integrity of examinations, it is now crucial that we move away from cosmetic changes towards addressing the root causes of this examination system failure. It is worth being clear about where the vulnerability lives, because the answer follows directly from the diagnosis.
The examination supply chain is long and it is human. A question paper passes through setters, printers, logistics handlers, storage custodians, examination centre staff, and invigilators before it reaches a candidate. Each of those handoffs is a potential point of exposure. Legislation addresses this through deterrence. The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024 with its provisions of up to ten years of imprisonment and fines of ₹1 crore is an important step. But deterrence does not eliminate structural gaps and which is why such leakages keep repeating.
In this instance, we need to take a step forward and think about solution pathways. Here, technology can play a fundamentally positive role, it can secure the process to ensure controls over human involvement.
Technologies like blockchain and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can especially enable securing the examination process end-to-end and eliminating the possibilities of any leaks. Using blockchain, each question is cryptographically encrypted the moment it is added to the database, and the final question paper is the result of a randomiser which ensures that no admin can ever see the question paper before the day of the exam. Every action in the examination lifecycle including paper sealing, candidate authentication, answer submission, result recording, is written as an immutable transaction on the blockchain. Manual interventions are limited at every step. Any unauthorised access attempt is logged irreversibly and detectable in real time. Candidate identities are authenticated biometrically and tied on-chain to their specific examination session. The gains of this solution are further enhanced, it does not require upskilling on the part of the administrators–something that usually becomes evident with any new technological introduction. India’s premier think tank, NITI Aayog in its ‘Blockchain: The India Strategy report’, has also recognised blockchain as a ‘silver bullet’ for transforming business and governance processes.
Systems like EduBlock Pro, in this respect, have delivered on the promise of secure recruitment examinations in various instances, including through collaborations with the Punjab State AIDS Control Society under the department of health, government of Punjab.
These capabilities are scalable and deployable today. Blockchain-secured examination systems are not theoretical, instead they are an engineering choice that institutions can make. The principle is straightforward–building a system in which the integrity of the examination does not depend on individual-centric interventions.
Instances like the NEET-UG 2026 paper leak spike moments of reforms and improvements. A crucial pathway to this reform is that we place seriously on the table the question of examination architecture. The goal should not only be to catch the next leak faster. The goal should be to build a system in which the next leak is not possible. As we transition towards building a Viksit Bharat, our focus should be towards building resilience in systems and processes.
(The views expressed are personal)
This article is authored by Vikram R Singh, founder and CEO, Antier Solutions.
