Candidates set to appear for the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) Main entrance exams this year will now have to undergo frisking and biometric attendance after toilet breaks as well, as declared by the National Testing Agency (NTA) officials, a PTI report stated.

They also said that officials, observers, staff members, and even help serving refreshments will have to undergo the same process.

Decision taken to restrict malpractice 

NTA Director Subodh Kumar Singh said that the decision has been taken to ensure that there are no cases of use of unfair means or proxy attendance. "We have strict mechanisms in place already but the idea is to make the exam completely foolproof to ensure there are zero incidents," he added.

The current procedure includes only screening of the students at the entry and the biometric attendance is also recorded there.

The NTA director added that for the other exams conducted by the NTA, a similar procedure will be employed in the longer run.

More information on the exam
The JEE exams are conducted for admissions to centrally-funded technical institutions such as the National Institutes of Technologies (NITs) and the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs). Those who feature in the top 20 per cent of the merit list become eligible to sit for the JEE (Advanced), the entrance test for Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).

The Computer Based Test (CBT) will be conducted from January 24 to February 1, 2024 and the results will be announced on February 12. This year, the NTA has received a record 12.3 lakh registrations for the exam this time. The second edition of the bi-annual exam will be conducted in April.