The Congress has accused the National Testing Agency (NTA) of generating a profit of Rs 448 crore over the past six years, asserting that the Narendra Modi government had turned the future of millions of young people into a "revenue-raising exercise".

Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh stated this as a reply to Minister of State in the Education Ministry Sukanta Majumdar's reply in the Rajya Sabha on July 31.

Taking to platform 'X', Jairam Ramesh said, "The National Testing Agency (NTA) is at the very heart of the NEET scandal. It is a body of the Education Ministry whose only purpose is to function via outsourcing to private vendors. Not only do these vendors very often have dubious credentials but the NTA itself is headed by a person who presided over the Madhya Pradesh Public Service Commission, which has seen mega-scams."

In an answer to the Rajya Sabha, the Union MoS for Education revealed that the NTA collected an estimated Rs 3,512.98 crore while it spent Rs 3,064.77 crore on the conduct of examinations – it, therefore, netted a profit of Rs. 448 crores in the last six years.

"This corpus, however, has not been used to build the agency’s capabilities to conduct tests itself, or to strengthen regulatory and monitoring capabilities for its vendors. The future of millions of India’s youths has ultimately become a mere revenue-raising exercise for the non-biological PM’s Government," Jairam Ramesh added.