The Central Universities Entrance Test-UG for over 11,000 candidates who were scheduled to appear in the fourth phase of the exam has been deferred to 30 August to accommodate their choice of city for centre, officials said Saturday.

The fourth phase of the CUET for admission in undergraduate courses was scheduled from 17-20 August and a total of 3.72 lakh candidates were set to appear.

According to the initial plan, all phases of the exam were scheduled to conclude on 20 August. The National testing Agency (NTA), which is responsible for conducting the exam, had later announced that all phases of the exam will conclude on 28 August.

However, now the schedule has been further deferred and the exam split into six phases.

“The exam for over 11,000 out of 3.72 lakh candidates has been postponed to 30 August to accommodate their choice of city for exam centre. the NTA (National Testing Agency) has increased the capacity at centres and also added more exam centres besides making efforts to ensure the quality of the centres is enhanced,” UGC Chairman Jagadesh Kumar said.

“It has also been decided to station additional technical manpower by deploying the facility of Associate Professor level as technical observer at every centre to ensure smooth conduct of examination,” he added.

The second phase of Common University Entrance Test (CUET) was marred with glitches prompting the agency to cancel exams at various centres.

Kumar had last week said the exam was cancelled at various centres following indications and reports of “sabotage”.

“The NTA has also received some e-mails regarding digital glitches faced by individual candidates during previous phase as well as requests for change of date, centre, city and re-examination. Such requests are being examined on case-to-case basis using audit trail of individual candidates and report of the centres. If found feasible, the candidates will be appearing on 30 August,” the UGC Chief said.

The exam in second and third phase was also cancelled at centres in Kerala and Itanagar due to rains and landslides.