Lucknow, Feb. 19: The exam, the first big one of their lives, was still a couple of hours away when the mobiles beeped.

It was 8am. The message box showed a new SMS. "...Plz support Nakal Roko Abhijan..." it read.

Sender: Surya Pratap Singh, a senior IAS officer.

Below was the name VAST - or Voluntary Action for Social Transformation, the NGO he has set up to fight what is known across Uttar Pradesh as the "copying mafia".

Singh, a doctorate from Michigan State University, had hit the streets, well before students appearing for the Class X state board tests that started today had reached their exam centres.

When The Telegraph called him on his mobile around 11 this morning, Singh was in Madhoganj, near Hardoi, some 170km from here. "I am with eight of my co-workers. We are keeping a watch on exam centres and videographing them," he said.

Singh, who has made it his mission to combat the menace of organised help to students who prefer paying for unfair means to studying, started the NGO soon after the government transferred him from the department of primary and secondary education where he was principal secretary.

He had been appointed in October 2014 but was shifted after barely a month and a half in the post.

As principal secretary, he had scrapped a host of centres for the 2015 board exams and also cancelled the registration of a large number of students on the basis of reports from district magistrates.

The official reason given for the transfer was delay in clearing projects.

Now principal secretary in the Bureau of Public Enterprise that looks after information technology, Singh appears to have taken his transfer in stride as he spoke of his campaign.

Last year, the officer said, 65 lakh students appeared for the board exam. "Eighty-nine per cent were declared passed and all in the first division. Isn't that abnormal? Unless these malpractices are checked, educational standards cannot improve. The copying mafia has cast its unhealthy shadow on the entire education system of the state," Singh, who is in his late fifties, added.

R.P. Mishra, general secretary, Secondary School Teachers' Association, confirmed the problem. "Students pay hefty sums to middlemen of copying syndicates to organise answers to questions and even hire people to take the exam on their behalf," Mishra said.

Primary education minister Mehboob Ali admitted the existence of the copying mafia. Although he didn't comment on Singh's crusade, he said he had already "issued directions" to officials of his department to crack down on "all kinds of unfair means". Police, the minister added, have been asked to book any candidate caught cheating.

Copying in exam halls, widely reported last year and the year before, has been a long-time problem in Uttar Pradesh. In 2013, an NSG commando was killed in Aligarh when he tried to prevent copying at an exam centre.

In 1992, Rajnath Singh, as the state's education minister, had passed an anti-copying act. But the Mulayam Singh Yadav government repealed the act in 1994.

Singh, who did his PhD in finance and infrastructure management from the US varsity two years ago, revealed another facet of the state's education system.

"Fifty thousand schools in Uttar Pradesh are fake. These were actually coaching centres but obtained government registration by furnishing fake papers," he said.

Asked whether the government could take action against Singh, Allahabad High Court advocate Ajay Pande said no IAS officer, while still in service, can get involved in NGO activities. "However, it appears Singh is just championing a cause in a non-profit organisation while being on leave. I am sure the organisation is not run by him directly."

Singh doesn't hold any post in the NGO.

Barely a year away from retirement, Singh appeared unfazed. He has opened a Facebook page on his mission and also a website to spread awareness.