Patna, Dec. 10: The Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) will soon have nine regional centres in nine divisions of the state.

Apart from Patna, regional centres will come up at Gaya, Bhagalpur, Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Purnea, Chhapra, Munger and Saharsa, at a total estimated cost of Rs 134 crore.

The Bihar State Educational Infrastructure Development Corporation (BSEIDC) has been assigned the task of designing the model of the centres and constructing the buildings.

The regional centres will be functional from January 16 at a temporary shelter till the official buildings are ready.

BSEB chairman Anand Kishor said the foundation stones for these centres will be laid in December. "The sites for the buildings were decided by the board and the blue-prints are ready. All the regional centre buildings will be made identical," said Kishor.

The total cost of each centre in Patna, Gaya, Bhagalpur, Darbhanga and Muzaffarpur is Rs 16.93 crore. These centres will be five-storied buildings and equipped with closed circuit cameras. The other four divisions will have centres four storeys high and worth Rs 12.5 crore each.

The board official said the Patna regional centre will come up on the campus of Rajkiye Balak Uch Madhyamik Vidyalaya in Shashtri Nagar.

Senior BSEIDC architect Pankaj Sinha told The Telegraph the construction site is being prepared. "The construction area of the building is 18,000 square feet. The tender was passed a few weeks ago and all buildings will be completed by 2019," he said.

The campuses of Haridas Seminary Uch Vidyalaya of Gaya, Jaglal Uch Vidyalaya (Bhagalpur), BKD Rajkiye Balak Uch Vidyalaya (Darbhanga), BB Collegiate School (Muzaffarpur), Zilla School of Purnea and Saharsa, B Seminary School (Chappra) and Uch Vidyalaya Vasudevpur (Munger) have been chosen for the other regional centres.

BSEB chairman Kishor added: "All the regional centres will have web-casting facility and everything will be monitored from the headquarters office of the board. The centres will be used as examination centres, and will be able to hold around 10,000 students. It will also be used as evaluation centres, and bar-coded answer scripts will be sent here for evaluation on the computers," he said.

The Bihar board is also renovating the office building at an estimated cost of Rs 4.50 crore. "More CCTV cameras will be installed and the building will be furnished with modular furniture and computers. All the expenses will be incurred by the board," said the board official.

The district administration selected the schools and ensured that academic activity is not affected because of digging and site clearing work.

District education officer Medo Das said the schools were selected for construction of regional offices on the basis of their size and areas.