NEET-PG aspirants to face Aadhaar checks Candidates To Get Test City Details 3 Wks In Advance

NEET-PG aspirants to face Aadhaar checks Candidates To Get Test City Details 3 Wks In Advance 

Anuja.Jaiswal@timesofindia.com  02.08.2026

New Delhi: More than 2.73 lakh medical graduates have registered for NEET-PG 2026, an increase of over 12.5% over last year, as National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences rolls out enhanced authentication measures and candidate-friendly initiatives for the Aug-30 examination.

Candidates will undergo Aadhaar-based authentication during registration and on the examination day, while iris-based biometric verification will be used wherever fingerprint authentication is unsuccessful. They will also have to indicate three preferred states for allotment of examination centres, with their correspondence state as the mandatory first preference. 

Test city information will be issued nearly three weeks before the examination, enabling candidates to plan travel and accommodation in advance. Examination will comprise 180 questions that have to be answered in 210 minutes, giving candidates more time per question while retaining the overall duration of examination. 

Union health minister J P Nadda reviewed preparations for the examination on Saturday and directed officials to ensure its smooth, transparent and technology-enabled conduct while maintaining the highest standards of security and integrity. He also urged candidates not to fall prey to rumours or fraudulent claims regarding question paper leaks, saying the final paper is selected through a highly encrypted, time-bound process shortly before the examination, making any claim of prior access entirely false. 

Officials said examination will be conducted under a multi-layered security framework, which includes CCTV surveillance, biometric authentication, candidate frisking, signal jammers, dynamic computer allocation, live monitoring through central and regional command centres, and independent observers. 

More than 60,000 examination personnel will be deployed to oversee the examination. The end-to-end question paper preparation and delivery process has been reinforced through multiple layers of encryption, secure offline preparation, time-bound finalisation of paper shortly before the examination and controlled digital decryption at the scheduled commencement of the test.