Cuttack, Dec. 22: Students, who have taken the matriculation examination from 2000 to 2015, will get the duplicate copy of their mark sheets and certificates within two hours.

At present, an applicant has to wait for nearly a month for duplicate copies of the certificates and 15 days under the tatkal service of the Board of Secondary Education, Odisha.

With the board planning to digitise the records of matriculation examination, all information of students, who have taken the high school certification examination since its inception in 1955, would be available at the click of a mouse. However, since the entire digitisation of records of the past 60 years would be time-consuming, the board would go about the electronic storage of data in a phased manner.

In the first phase, all the examination-related data of students, who had taken their matriculation examination from 2000 to 2015, will be digitally stored. A board official said the process was going to start from January next and would be over by six months. The data from 2000 to 1995 will be digitised in the second phase.

Speaking on the board's diamond jubilee celebrations, the organisation's president D.P. Nanda today said a proposal for the digitisation process had already been submitted to the state government. "We will shortly go for digitisation of 60 years' data stored manually on tabulation registers as most confidential records are falling apart with time," said Nanda.

"Once the digitisation is over, students will get a duplicate copy of their mark sheet and certificates within two hours," he said.

The digitisation process has become crucial because of the rise in the number of students appearing the matriculation examination every year. A record six lakh students have enrolled themselves under the board for the 2016 matriculation examination scheduled to be held in February.

"Once all the data is entered and available in the digital format, we can find the details of the examination records of a student by just entering his or her name and the roll number. This will enable the board to immediately issue duplicate copies of their mark sheet in no time," he said.

The board has sought nearly Rs 4 crore for the digitisation process from the state government.

Official sources said the digitisation process would be crucial in successful implementation of the Jana Seva Kendra (Common Services Centre) for online redress of various grievances of people across the state.