The West Bengal Board of Secondary Education will provide test papers free to all examinees of next year's Madhyamik.

Madhyamik 2016, which more than 11 lakh students are likely to write, starts on February 1. Education minister Partha Chatterjee will on Monday unveil the board's test paper - a compilation of previous years' questions as well as the questions set in the selection tests of various schools.

This is the first time the board - which started publishing test papers in 2012 following a directive from the school education department - will provide the compilation to the candidates free.

Till last year, the board's test papers were sold at Rs 70.

"A free copy of the test paper will reach each student enrolled for Madhyamik 2016 by next week. Copies of the compilation have been despatched to the schools in all districts. The schools will distribute them to the candidates between November 16 and 18," board administrator Kalyanmoy Ganguly said.

Madhyamik and Higher Secondary test papers are also published by the CPM-backed All Bengal Teachers Association and the State Teachers and Employees' Association.

The test papers published by the two organisations contain - apart from the questions of previous years' Madhyamik and those set in the selection tests - suggestions for next year's Madhyamik.

The 650-page board test paper will contain questions of selection tests at 80 schools, the best answers written by examinees of last year's Madhyamik and analysis and suggestions on how to answer questions in various subjects in order to score full marks. The test paper cannot have suggestions as the board conducts Madhyamik.

Teachers and students welcomed the government's move to provide the board test paper free to every candidate.

An ABTA member said their test papers are the most popular among students. "We have been publishing test papers since 1930," the member said.

He alleged the board's decision had a political motive. "We had sold more than 7.5 lakh copies of our test paper before Madhyamik 2015. With the Assembly elections round the corner, the government wants to make political gains by distributing its test paper free to the 11 lakh examinees," the ABTA member said.

Sources said the idea of getting the secondary education board to publish test papers was chief minister Mamata Banerjee's brainchild.

In 2012, the board had sold more than a lakh copies within a few days of the publication of its first test paper and made a profit of around Rs 28 lakh. In the following two years the sale dropped to less than a lakh, insiders attributing the trend to the fact that the board's test paper does not contain suggestions.

A source claimed the sale of the test paper increased again in 2015 and the board earned Rs 38 lakh from its sale.

"The decision to distribute the test paper free has been taken considering the huge interest shown by the students. There is no political motive behind the decision," the board source said.