CUTTACK: With over 6 lakh students appearing at the High School Certificate (HSC) examination, beginning Friday, the Board of Secondary Education (BSE) has issued guidelines which are mandatory for candidates to follow.
Infringement of the guidelines by a candidate will render him/her liable to expulsion from the examination hall and further penalty. The student may also be barred from writing other exams, the BSE stated.As per instructions, the examination hall will be opened an hour before the scheduled examination time on the first day while it will be reduced to 40 minutes on other days.
The Optical Mirror Recognition (OMR) answer sheet will be distributed at 8.30 am and Multiple Choice Question (MCQ) and subjective question cum answer sheet will be provided at 8.45 am. Examinees will get one hour from 9 am to attempt OMR answer sheet and one hour 30 minutes for subjective question which will start at 10 am. However, for Maths the students will 15 minutes more to complete their paper.
In a stringent order, the BSE has stated that candidates reaching the examination centre 30 minutes late will not be allowed to appear at the paper. Similarly, no candidate will be allowed to leave examination hall in less than an hour after examination commences.
The Controller of Examination, Dr Nihar Ranjan Mohanty, alerted the students that partial darkening of circle in OMR answer sheet will not fetch any mark. The BSE have also been warned against possessing any incriminating materials.
On the other hand, the centre heads and invigilators have been instructed to seal OMR answer sheet by 10.35 am and subjective books by 12.30 noon and start entering centre information online from 12.30 pm to 3 pm.
While 5,90,360 candidates will write HSC exam, 13,978 candidates will write State Open School Certificate and 3,715 candidates Madhyama at 2,919 examination centres.To curb malpractice, 125 special squads have been formed at three levels while 302 Nodal Centres, including 23 at different police stations in remote areas, have been set up for smooth conduct of the examination.