Uttar Pradesh Board exams begin under CCTV watch, STF deployment

Uttar Pradesh school board exams began Thursday amid strict anti-cheating measures, including control rooms which monitored live video feed from exam centres, according to a government statement.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath also issued instructions to book those found involved in facilitating cheating during examinations under the National Security Act (NSA), the statement said.

The NSA allows detention of a person up to a year without any charge.

Over 31 lakh students are appearing for class 10 board exams and over 27 lakh for class 12 board exams, officials said here.

Two control rooms in Lucknow and a control room each has been set up in 75 districts to monitor the exams.

An FIR will be lodged against the invigilators and centre administrators involved in helping candidates in copying, the government said.

The nodal officer is entrusted with the task to inquire into any disturbance found in online monitoring of a centre by contacting the administrator of the concerned examination centre.

About 3 lakh CCTV cameras with voice recorders, Digital Video Recorder router devices and high-speed internet connections have been deployed in about 1.43 lakh examination rooms across centres.

Arrangements have been made for live monitoring of all 8,753 examination centres through webcasting in all 75 districts.

The Special Task Force (STF) of state police and local intelligence have been activated to monitor all sensitive and highly-sensitive examination centres.

Ballia, Azamgarh, Mau, Ghazipur, Chandauli, Jaunpur, Deoria, Gonda, Mathura, Aligarh, Mainpuri, Etah, Baghpat, Hardoi, Prayagraj and Kaushambi have been kept in the "most sensitive" category.

In view of the security arrangement of question papers at the exam centres, a room separate from the principal's room has been set up for securing the question papers in a double lock almirah, it said.

This is for the first time that the question papers have been packed in tamper-proof envelopes in four layers, and stitched answer sheets have been arranged in all the districts.

Besides, QR code and logo of the board have been printed on the answer sheets in four colours.

This time, 170 prisoners will also appear in the UP board exams. Among them, 79 candidates are registered in high school and 91 in intermediate. Last time, 116 candidates were registered in high school and 116 in intermediate.

The maximum number of prisoners are appearing from District Jail Ghaziabad which include 23 high school and 26 intermediate candidates.

In Nishatganj Government school here, examinees were welcomed with flowers and the school was decorated with balloons.

Adityanath appealed to students to appear in examinations without any tension and said that they will get positive results with their labour.

The examinations will continue for 14 days and will end on March 4.