Cuttack, April 16: The matriculation examination for 4.56 lakh regular candidates would resume from Tuesday, almost a month after it was suspended following the theft of question papers from a high school in Puri.

The examinees will have to appear for English on April 17, Sanskrit on April 19, mathematics on April 21, physical science on April 23, life science on April 24, social studies on April 25 and history and civics on April 26.

However, the students would not have to write the Odia paper again, which was conducted smoothly on March 19, a day before question papers of at least seven subjects were stolen from Bhagawati Bidyapitha at Kakatpur in Puri.

Though the English exam for regular students was conducted as per schedule on March 21, authorities of the Board of Secondary Education were forced to scrap it while postponing the subsequent papers to conduct the examination in a free and fair way.

The beleaguered school has been scrapped as an exam centre and the Kakatapur Girls’ High School finalised as the alternative venue.

The board officials said they were taking measures to ensure smooth conduct of the exams. It has established 230 nodal centres for the security of the confidential examination materials. Of these, eight police stations have been converted into nodal centres, where the question papers are stored amid tight security. These centres were mostly in Koraput and other Maoist-dominated areas, said one of the board officials.

The district collectors and superintendents have been requested to provide adequate security at the nodal centres from where the question papers will be dispatched to the 2,095 exam centres a day before the exam starts. Moreover, soft copies of question papers in each subject had been prepared in case of any eventuality, sources said.

Secretary of the board Nihar Ranjan Mohapatra said 122 squads, including 87 central ones, had been formed to check incidents of malpractice. “We have instructed the squads to take strict action against those adopting unfair means or abetting malpractice. If need be, an FIR would be registered against the erring invigilators and centre superintendents in case of unlawful activities taking place at the exam centres,” Mohapatra said.

The exams would conclude on April 26 and the evaluation of answer paper was likely to start from May 1 while the results would be published by June end, official sources said.

The postponing of exams had led to widespread resentment among students as well as parents all over the state. Anxious and disturbed about the exams being rescheduled, a matric candidate from Kendrapara, Rashmita Mallick, set herself afire on March 22. She had been admitted to SCB Medical College and Hospital here but succumbed to the burn injuries on April 2.

“I am very nervous about tomorrow’s exam. I had done well in my English paper and was dejected after it was cancelled because of the theft incident. What if the questions are tougher this time? I am keeping my fingers crossed,” said Sarojini Das, an examinee.