NEW DELHI: NEET UG results will be declared by July 20, a senior official at the National Testing Agency told news agency ANI on Thursday.While the official did not provide an exact detail but confirmed that the agency is working on a war footing to release the results soon. He, however, assured that the academic year for MBBS students will not be delayed.“We would not like to give out any date as of now, but the result will be out by July 20,” a senior NTA official told ANI during a telephonic interview.“Normally, the results are announced within 45 days of the examination, but this time, as we have conducted the exam in 37 days, we will announce the results much earlier,” he added.When asked about how this process is carried out, the official said,”We need to scan all the challenges one by one, examine the supporting evidence, and respond to each one of them.”The NTA had released the provisional answer key on June 25, and candidates were given time till June 28 to challenge it. As per the official, around 10,000 challenges were received from aspirants.Re-NEET was conducted on June 21 after the May 3 examination was cancelled after paper leak.A fee of Rs 200 is charged per question and is refunded if the student’s challenge is found to be correct.The official also assured that, despite NEET being conducted again, the academic year will not be delayed, even though there is no clarity yet on the counselling process, which usually takes over one month.After the NEET-UG result is declared, the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) releases the counselling schedule for the 15 per cent All India Quota (AIQ), AIIMS, JIPMER, central and deemed universities, while individual states announce separate schedules for their 85 per cent state quota seats.In a normal NEET year, the first-year MBBS academic session usually starts in August or September, depending on how quickly counselling concludes. The official said that this year, too, the session will begin on time.Candidates register online, pay the required counselling fee, and fill in and lock their preferred choices of colleges and courses, following which seats are allotted based on NEET rank, category, reservation norms, preferences, and seat availability.