Bhubaneswar, Feb. 22: Around 151 students were booked for cheating during the first language paper on the first day of the High School Certificate examination today.
A record 6,01,348 students are taking the examination this year at 2,882 centres across the state with regular and ex-regular students appearing for their papers on alternative days.
A Board of Secondary Education official said the district education officers had constituted flying squads to conduct surprise checks on various examination centres. They have also asked the block development officers and tehsildars to monitor the examination in their respective blocks.
The board has also decided to lodge FIRs against persons trying to assist students in copying or other malpractices. "We have asked the relevant authorities to check gatherings of people, particularly the guardians, within a 200 metre radius of the exam centres," said board president Dakshya Prasad Nanda.
School and mass education minister Debi Prasad Mishra took stock of preparations and arrangements at various exam centres in Cuttack.
The minister also made tours to various examination centres in Jajpur district, where 27,899 students appeared for the exam.
"Around 478 students were absent for the exams, while we detected 23 cases of malpractices in Jajpur," said Mishra.
"We have made arrangements for a three-tier security system for the smooth conduct of the examinations. Besides, we have made special arrangements in the Maoist-infested areas with provision for police patrolling. The district administration concerned -collectors and police superintendents - are responsible for monitoring the situation," he said.
Nearly 305 centres, including 22 police stations in the sensitive zones and Naxalite-affected districts, have been designated as nodal centres for storing the question-cum-answer booklets.
In a related development, the local tehsildar, district education officer and the police had to pacify tension at the Kabisuryanagar Mardharaj High School in Berhampur after the question paper packets had been opened before the scheduled time.
"We had directed all centre superintendents to open the Optical Mark Recognition sheet packets to check whether the number of sheets sent by the board was equal to the number of students. This year, we sent 25 additional Optical Mark Recognition sheets to all centres," Nanda said.
He said the board had kept 300 additional sheets in each nodal centre to ensure that there was no shortage.
Earlier in the day, chief minister Naveen Patnaik conveyed his best wishes to the students appearing for the exam on Twitter. "My best wishes to all the students appearing for Matriculation exams," Naveen tweeted.
In another development, agitating teachers today peacefully took part in conducting the exams at most of the places. However, teachers associated with the Schoolteachers' Federation of Odisha, an umbrella organisation of 14 teachers' organisations with a strength of 40,000 teachers from 2,608 schools, sported black badges during the examination as a mark of protest.
The school and mass education minister, however, urged them to help manage the examinations effectively.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY VIKASH SHARMA
