BENGALURU: With the PUC II examinations set to begin from March 9, the Department of Pre-University Education is racing against time to ensure that all loose ends are covered.
To prevent any possibility of a question paper leak like last year, which caused huge embarrassment for the department and a harrowing time for students, it has now set up a control room at its headquarters to monitor treasuries across the state where the question papers will be stored.
According to department officials, the control room will be manned by the staff of the examination section. “CCTV cameras have been installed in the treasuries. In case any unauthorised person enters a treasury where the question papers are kept, an alert will be sent to the mobile phone of the Department director,” explained an official.
Also, an alarm will be sounded at the treasury to alert local authorities. The control room will monitor all the 30 district treasuries. Primary and Secondary Education Minister Tanveer Sait inspected the working of the new system on Saturday morning.
Normally, the question papers are deposited at the district treasuries three days before the exam. From there, the question papers are distributed to the exam centres on the day of the examination. However, officials are tight-lipped about how they plan to go about it this year.
Following last year’s Chemistry question paper leak twice, the case was handed over the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). The CID team had pointed out several security loopholes at the treasuries and even unearthed the role of treasury officials in the question paper leak. Some of them were also arrested.