From recognition to readiness
Recognition became responsibility. Responsibility became engineering. India’s education leadership identified promise in Durjeya’s secure offline examination technology early — and we treated that visibility as a mandate to keep building, not as a finish line.
In short
- AICTE recommended Durjeya’s Secure Digital Examination Solution in March 2024, under NEAT.
- We treated that as a mandate to keep building, not a finish line.
- What followed: fortified proximity hardware and a cryptographic evidence chain — CORTEX.
- The foundational method is protected by India Patent No. 572782.
The continuity
The foundational work preceded the crisis. Institutions under the Ministry of Education had already created space to evaluate and support an Indian deep-tech solution before examination integrity became today’s urgent public priority. That early institutional backing gave Durjeya both prominence and accountability to a higher standard.
Incubation at SINE, IIT Bombay
Durjeya entered the SINE (Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship) deep-tech incubation ecosystem at IIT Bombay, placing a secure examination concept inside a rigorous engineering environment.
29 July 2023 — a Memorandum of Understanding
AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education) and Durjeya Solutions Private Limited executed an MoU at AICTE, New Delhi, under NEAT (National Educational Alliance for Technology).
27 March 2024 — recommendation to institutions
AICTE issued a Recommendation Letter to the Principal, Director or Vice Chancellor of every affiliated college, institute and university.
Engineering evolution
Durjeya advanced the hardware, engineered proximity transfer that works with RF jammers switched on, and built cryptographic evidence layers across the examination chain.
Readiness at national scale
The outcome is an offline, independently verifiable architecture built for the scale, scrutiny and public-confidence requirements of an examination like NEET.
The documentary record
AICTE’s engagement went beyond simple acknowledgement. The recommendation letter, addressed to the Principal, Director or Vice Chancellor of every AICTE-affiliated college, institute and university, described the solution as blending the security of traditional exam centres and in-campus exams with advanced offline technology — “setting a new standard for fair, secure, and compliant academic evaluations.”
We recommend you to utilize this solution for the advancement of the examination and assessment at your institute.
Dr. Buddha Chandrasekhar, Chief Coordinating Officer, AICTE · Recommendation Letter, 27 March 2024
For a young Indian deep-tech company, that recognition signalled two things at once: the problem was of national importance, and the approach merited continued development.
What the recognition covered
The 2024 AICTE recommendation addressed Durjeya CORTEX — the Secure Digital Examination Solution under NEAT — supporting the pen-and-paper examination format that most Indian students still write.
What changed after recognition
Then — secure delivery
Controlled question-paper movement and response collection, without requiring an always-on network in the examination hall.
Now — verifiable trust
Fortified proximity hardware; cryptographic verifiability through signed, hash-linked response evidence; device attestation and candidate-verifiable receipts; and an architecture that lets schools serve as trusted venues with portable tablet capacity and offline halls.
That second layer is CORTEX — the “verify, don’t trust” cryptographic evidence chain that sits across the examination. The foundational method is protected by India Patent No. 572782, granted 28 October 2025 with priority from 1 July 2022, with further patents filed and in process.
The public-purpose thread
Early institutional vision opened the pathway; Indian engineering carried the responsibility forward. The obligation it created is specific: restrict readable paper movement, keep halls offline so questions cannot be answered remotely, make every response verifiable, and shield honest candidates when wrongdoing occurs locally.
Accuracy note
AICTE’s 2024 letter addressed Durjeya’s then-existing Secure Digital Examination Solution. The capabilities described under “Now” represent subsequent engineering development. The letter should not be read as certification of every later feature, nor as approval for any specific national deployment.