Around 35,000 aspirants took the National Eligibility Test (NET) in Bihar on Sunday, eyeing jobs in the state universities.

The examination passed off peacefully despite a record number of aspirants appearing in it and paper leak rumours. Around 23,000 applications were received for the NET conducted in June this year.

NET is conducted twice every year - in June and December.

The teaching fraternity attributed the surge in the number of examinees primarily to the state government's decision to appoint university teachers after nearly 12 years. The Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) invited applications for 3,364 posts of assistant professors in September. Possessing PhD or clearing NET is a must for applying for the posts. The last date for applying is January 5.

Patna University oversees the NET in Bihar, which was conducted in two sessions - from 9.30am to 12noon and from 1.30pm to 4pm. Rabindra Kumar, the coordinator of NET at Patna University, said: 'The examination passed off without any untoward incident.'

The peaceful examination assumes significance because there were rumours of question paper leak on Saturday evening, which Kumar denied.

On Saturday night, confusion prevailed on the university campus after rumours over question paper leak spread. Some students claimed that a container having question papers was found at the main administrative building of the varsity. But the university administration and police denied any such incident.

An officer of Pirbahore police station said: 'There were some chit-chat about the leak of NET question papers but no such incident has happened in reality. Some students had spread the rumour to confuse peers.'

Most of the NET examinees were happy about the questions they had to answer on Sunday but apprehended high cut-off marks. Manorama, a NET candidate, said: 'Most of the questions were from the undergraduate and postgraduate syllabi.' Echoing her, another aspirant Lipi said: 'The question paper was easy. It indicates that the cut-off marks would be high as compared to the previous time.'