Ranchi: The Jharkhand Academic Council (JAC) on Wednesday said the evaluation of the answer scripts of matriculation and intermediate exams would begin from April 27, which would in turn delay the publication of results to the first week of June against May 30 last year.

JAC chairman Arvind Prasad Singh, however, said the delay won't affect the prospects of the students much.

"The evaluation will begin from April 27 and results, if all goes well, will be out in the first week of June. We shall try not to go beyond it. There will be slight delay vis-à-vis last year but nothing much to worry," Singh told The Telegraph over phone.

He said the council was fine-tuning the number of evaluation centres and evaluators across the state.

"We have got details from many districts. By Thursday, I should be able to tell you exact details about the number of evaluation centres," he said.

This year, both matric and intermediate exams began from March 8. While the matric exams concluded on March 27, students wrote their last intermediate paper on April 8.

The practical exams were held from February 14 to 27. About 4.31 lakh students appeared for matric and 3.16 lakh for intermediate exams.

Singh said one of the reasons why results would be delayed was because the exams were conducted in March this year.

"Last year, we started the exam from February 16. The government wanted us to conduct the test in the first week of March so that students can get sufficient time for preparation," he said.

On whether the conduct of Class VIII exams from February 20-27 also contributed to the delay, Singh said, "Of course it did. Though the exams were held at school level, the questions were prepared by JAC. Also, teachers, who will evaluate the papers, are busy with the ongoing Class IX and XI exams. So, there are a number of factors behind the delay in publishing the results," he said.

Ranchi district education officer Ratan Mahavar said they had already submitted details about the evaluation centres and sent the list of evaluators.

"We have proposed seven evaluation centres for matric and six for intermediate answer scripts," he said, but couldn't specify the number of evaluators.