Students and parents have spotted a large number of errors in the provisional answer keys released for the Common University Entrance Test-Undergraduate (CUET-UG) this year, triggering allegations that the provision was being used as a money-spinner by the National Testing Agency.

Candidates have to pay Rs 200 as a “processing fee” to challenge every answer key that they consider to be wrong. Several students and parents said the NTA had deliberately released incorrect answers to augment its income through challenges to the answer keys.

The CUET-UG, the sole criterion for the selection of students for undergraduate courses in central universities, is in its second year. On Thursday, the provisional answer keys for the second edition of the exam were released along with the question papers with the recorded responses of every candidate for them to match.

The final answer keys will be prepared after the process of challenging the provisional keys is over. The answer scripts will be evaluated on the basis of the final answer keys. The candidates have been allowed to challenge the answer keys by paying a non-refundable processing fee of Rs 200 per answer key by 11.50pm on July 1.

A parent, drawing attention to a hypothetical situation, said that if 10,000 students challenged an answer key, the central government testing agency NTA earns as much as Rs 20 lakh. The parent said the NTA should refund the students if an answer key is found to be wrong.

The Telegraph sent an email to NTA director-general Subodh Kumar Singh asking about the erroneous answer keys and the allegation of deliberate mistakes raised by candidates and parents. His response is awaited. This year, 14.9 lakh students applied for the CUETUG, held between May 21 and June 23. Last year’s CUET, when such large-scale allegations had not been raised about erroneous answer keys, had been marred by technical glitches.

The glitches were seen as one of the reasons for 40 per cent of the applicants remaining absent from the exams. Immediately after the answer keys were released on Thursday, candidates and their parents took to social media to complain about a large number of wrong answers projected as correct answers.

For example, the political science paper had a question on who had founded the Indian National Army, with the options being Chandrasekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Subhas Chandra Bose and Sukhdev. While the correct answer is Bose, the answer key released by the NTA says Bhagat Singh, a candidate pointed out.

“Bhagat Singh died before the INA was established. This is an obvious error. In the paper, I have found wrong answers for six out of the 50 questions. I have challenged these answers by paying a fee of Rs 1,200,” the candidate said.

A parent said he had spotted 16 erroneous answers for the Hindi paper, which had 50 questions. “One or two per cent of the answer keys turning out to be incorrect could be considered normal. But 20 to 30 per cent of the answer keys in some papers are wrong. This could only be a deliberate action to extract money from students and parents through fees for challenging the keys,” the parent said.

“If an answer key is found to be wrong, the fee paid by the students must be refunded. The NTA takes it as a processing fee for correcting its own mistakes,” he added. Rajesh Jha, a faculty member of Delhi University, said the NTA was expected to follow a robust protocol of examining and verifying the answer keys before releasing them.

“It shows the incompetence of the NTA as the answer keys are replete with errors. The NTA must probe and fix responsibility for such negligence,” Jha said.