JEE Main 2025: National Testing Agency announces details for PwD candidates

NTA has released guidelines for holding the JEE Mains for students with disabilities. The guidelines have been declared as the agency gets a lot of inquiries from PwD/PwBD applicants

Guidelines for administering the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main to individuals with disabilities have been made public by the National Testing Agency (NTA). The guidelines were published in response to numerous inquiries the agency received concerning scribe and compensatory time for applicants who fall under Persons with Disabilities (PwD) and Persons with Benchmark Disabilities (PwBD) categories.

The NTA stated that it gets many inquiries on problems related to scribe and compensatory time for PwD/PwBD candidates. It mentioned, “The guidelines that will be followed for JEE (Main) with reference to relevant extracts of Government Notification and Office Memorandums are enumerated below". 

NTA JEE Main 2025: Who falls under PwD category?

According to the NTA notice, a person with a benchmark disability is someone who possesses “not less than forty percent of a specified disability where specified disability has not been defined in measurable terms and includes a person with disability where specified disability has been defined in measurable terms, as certified by the certifying authority.”

Additionally, the definition of a person with a handicap includes “a person with long-term physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impairment which, in interaction with barriers, hinders his full and effective participation in society equally with others.”

NTA JEE Main 2025: Facility of a scribe

The NTA mentioned that “the facility of scribe and/or compensatory time will be granted solely to those having difficulty in writing subject to the production of a certificate to the effect that the person concerned has limitation to write and that scribe is essential to write the examination on his/her behalf from the competent medical authority of a government healthcare institution as per proforma at Appendix-II.”

Furthermore, PwD applicants would be permitted an additional time of a minimum of one hour for an exam of three hours whether they utilise the facility scribe or not.

The NTA stated, “In case, the duration of the examination is less than an hour, then the duration of additional time should be allowed on a pro-rata basis. Additional time should not be less than 5 minutes and should be in the multiple of 5.”