Bhubaneswar: The Board of Secondary Education (BSE) has decided to set up a tight vigil for this year's matriculation examination that will begin on February 23.

A three-tier security system will be put in place to under the aegis of district collectors and police superintendents to keep a vigil on exam centres.

"Security will be beefed up ahead of the exam. Special teams, comprising flying squads, would be formed at the block and district levels," said board president Jahan Ara Begum.

She said the board would strictly deal with malpractice and initiate disciplinary action against invigilators and centre superintendents if students at their respective centres were found cheating.

The board will also take steps to identify centres in sensitive and hypersensitive areas. Police stations in Maoist-hit Koraput, Malkangiri and Kandhamal will be turned into nodal centres for special vigilance.

The board also plans to set up control rooms at its headquarters to monitor the exam.

The board's special squad booked more than 10,000 students for cheating in 2012. Around 1,176 students were booked for malpractice in 2017, while the numbers were 8,490, 3,327, 1,956 and 1,449 in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016respectively.

A total 5,90,330 students have registered for the High School Certificate examination from 2,818 centres. The board has set up 302 nodal centres to store question papers.

The state government recently brought several reforms in the way the matriculation exam was conducted.

From this examination session, students will no longer take the exam in their respective schools. Instead, they will be allocated another centre within a 5km distance of their schools.