Manish Kumar, a student of LN College in Bhagwanpur, Vaishali, said he was shocked to see he had been marked absent for the Intermediate examination in all subjects, though the science student claimed he had appeared for all the exams.

Suraj Kumar, who appeared for the Intermediate examination from BRB College, Samastipur, was similarly shocked to see his results marked "incomplete".

"They have given me marks in all subjects - 274 out of total 500 - but the result says 'incomplete'," said Manish, also a science student.

Manish and Suraj have been coming to the Bihar School Examination Board office on Buddha Marg in the state capital every day since the Intermediate results were declared on May 30 to try and get their results rectified.

Manish and Suraj are not isolated cases. Among the crowds in front of the board office are many such stories of error-ridden results. Some have different roll numbers in the mark-sheet and admit cards, some like Suraj have "incomplete" results and others have been marked absent in papers they claim they appeared for.

Board sources said the number of such errors this year is high. One source put the number of such students at one lakh, though the source did not back up that claim with evidence such as number of complaints received.

Board chairman Anand Kishor, however, said errors were not much and the actual number of such results will be gathered only after the board receives all scrutiny applications. The online application for scrutiny of copies can be done till June 15. The board has set a target to complete the scrutiny by June 30.

"We are looking into the cases of anomalies in results such as absent results, incomplete results, incorrect printing of registration and roll number in results." Kishor added.

A board official said under cover of anonymity: "As the board has gone for digitisation of results for the first time, the technicians might have committed mistakes in uploading the marks for the results."

The board had given the digitisation assignment to three firms this year, based on a tender process.

"The persons working on the digitisation of marks are not very qualified; the IT firms have hired young graduates," said a board source. "The IT firms were assigned the work of first collecting data (student's name, roll number and subject-wise marks) from different evaluation centres and then upload it for the candidate's mark-sheet."

Kishor said: "These IT firms were given the work as they had placed lowest bids, and after going through details of their previous work."

The digitisation hiccups are likely to add fuel to the fire over this year's alarming Intermediate results.