Difficulties in accessing admit cards for the NEET-UG exam scheduled to be held on June 21 have sparked frustration among thousands of students, many of whom took to social media to complain about glitches in the website, and confusion over the exam fee refund process.
NTA officials said the site was functioning normally. “More than 700,000 students have downloaded their admit cards. Nearly 6,000 concurrent users are using the NEET portal as against our ability to handle 100,000 users at a time,” said a senior NTA official, requesting anonymity.
“It took about three days to download 2.2 million access cards last time as well, and the download rate was normal. We are monitoring the download.”
However, candidates reported frequent session terminations, timeout errors, and blank screens as they attempted to complete the mandatory bank account verification associated with refunds and download their hall tickets.
The National Testing Agency (NTA) started issuing admit cards on Sunday evening for the June 21 retest, which is being conducted after the original May 3 test was canceled after it emerged that the test paper may have leaked. About 2.27 million candidates appeared for this test.
Some students said that server overload and linking refund verification to the process of downloading the admit card had increased their anxiety days before the exam. A candidate from Navi Mumbai said she was able to complete the refund process after three attempts two days ago but remained unable to access the admit card.
“I tried to download it on Monday morning thinking the traffic would be less than on Sunday, but I can’t even log in. The message says my credentials are wrong when they are not. The ‘Forgot Password’ link is not available and I’m afraid repeated attempts will result in my account getting banned,” said the student, who requested to remain anonymous. “This is causing more disruption to my studies and adding to the anxiety already caused by retaking NEET.”
One student from Bokaro said he tried “15 to 20 times” but kept getting the “Please try again after some time” message. Another student from Bokaro said that she repeatedly faced blank pages and “service not available” messages.
“My question to the NTA is, if it is necessary to provide and verify the bank details again in order to download the admit card, then what is the point of issuing the refund link days before the admit card?” I asked.
Libby Verma said that she had changed the examination city from Bihar to Delhi and was keen to know the exact location of her centre.
“The refund portal kept showing the new verification code every time I clicked on it. There was no progress. This is definitely affecting my schedule and creating unnecessary panic,” she said.
A Delhi-based student who eventually managed to access the admit card said the process took nearly eight hours spread over Sunday and Monday night.
“If you click that your bank details do not need to be updated, the site will stop. If you try to update them, it will result in a blank screen. I finally downloaded the admit card after several attempts,” the student said.
In a post on X on Monday evening, NTA said all refunds would be credited directly to bank accounts updated on the portal and warned candidates against fraudulent calls or messages claiming to speed up the process. She said that candidates facing difficulties or those who provided incorrect details will get another opportunity to correct them after the test.
The NTA official cited above said that several students had entered incorrect bank details earlier, prompting the agency to reopen the facility. “Everyone will get their admit cards by Tuesday or Wednesday.”
The original deadline for submitting preferred bank account details for a refund was 27 May. The NTA later reopened the facility after receiving complaints from candidates who provided incorrect information.
The NEET-UG 2026 exam on May 3 was canceled on May 12 after investigations found overlaps between the guess paper distributed earlier and the actual question paper. CBI is investigating the leak.
