New Delhi: Furnishing of Aadhaar number will not be compulsory for students applying for the next National Eligibility Test (NET) and the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main.

After the University Grants Commission rolled back its year-old directive asking universities to print students' Aadhaar numbers on mark sheets, the National Testing Agency (NTA) last week relaxed the unique identification data requirement for national-level tests.

The newly established agency has been entrusted with the responsibility of conducting national-level entrance tests from this year. Earlier, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) used to hold such exams.

The CBSE had made Aadhaar mandatory for the JEE-Main and the NET from 2017. While the JEE-Main is held to select candidates for under-graduate engineering courses, the NET is conducted to appoint assistant professors.

The JEE-Main will be held in two cycles in January and April 2019 while the NET will be conducted in November this year. The NTA has issued a media release clarifying that Aadhaar is no longer mandatory for the two exams.