New Delhi: Amid the row over the CBSE papers leak, the government today appointed senior bureaucrat Vineet Joshi as the Director General of the National Testing Agency (NTA), which will conduct the entrance examinations for higher educational institutions organised by the CBSE, AICTE and other bodies.

Joshi, a 1992-batch IAS officer of the Manipur cadre, was appointed to the post for five years, an order issued by the Department of Personnel and Training said. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had, in his budget speech of 2017-18, announced the setting up of the NTA "as an autonomous and self-sustained premier testing organisation to conduct all entrance examinations for higher educational institutions".

The Union cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had in November last year approved the setting up of the NTA. The establishment of the NTA will benefit about 40 lakh students appearing in various entrance examinations.

It will relieve the CBSE, AICTE and other bodies of the responsibility of conducting these entrance examinations and also bring in high reliability and a standardised difficulty level for assessing the aptitude, intelligence and problem-solving abilities of the students. As per its composition approved by the cabinet, the NTA will be chaired by an eminent educationist appointed by the Human Resource Development ministry.

"The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) will be the Director General to be appointed by the government. There will be a Board of Governors comprising members from user institutions. The Director General will be assisted by 9 verticals headed by academicians/experts," according to the proposed composition of the NTA. (PTI)