The reports of All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) question paper leak at a centre in Uttar Pradesh minutes before the examination was to begin on Sunday put thousands of students to great inconvenience as the paper was rescheduled across Punjab,like many other states,at the last moment. Around 8.30 am,an hour before the scheduled time of the examination,the organisers at all 14 centres in Bathinda,19 in Jalandhar and 43 in Chandigarh were told to announce postponement of the paper by a few hours,taking the candidates,who were all set to enter the centres to write the exam,by surprise. An official at one of the centres in Bathinda said the steel boxes containing the papers were to be opened at 9 am,but after getting a call from a CBSE official,he headed to Bathinda to replace the question papers. Sources claimed that alternate sets of papers had been kept at a bank in Bathinda and were handed over to organisers for the rescheduled exam. The rescheduling has created confusion. It has affected my concentration and preparedness for the exam, said Satish Kumar,who had come to Kendriya Vidyalya,Bhisiana,from Sardulgarh in Mansa. At most centres,the paper was delayed by around three hours. The CBSE had set up centres in three cities for the students of Punjab Bathinda,Jalandhar and Chandigarh. In Jalandhar,when the students were entering various centres around 9 am,an announcement was made that the exam would take place at 12 noon. Due to the delay,the students and their parents had to brave the scorching sun,waiting outside the centres for the examination to begin. We have come from Ludhiana and started early in the morning to reach the centre well in time,but had to spend the entire afternoon in the sun, said a parent. AIEEE Coordinator Principal Dr Rashmi Vij said the exam was to be started at 9.30 am,while they received a call from Delhi at 8.30 am that due to some technical reasons the exam could not be started on time. We were asked to start the exam at noon and directed to distribute an alternate set of question paper, she said. Naresh Puri,another parent,complained: There were no arrangements for the thousands of students who were forced to sit out for nearly three hours. We had to wait in this heat because my son did not want to go far from the examination centre. The delay demoralised the students and derailed their confidence, added Mamta Gupta,another parent. These parents,however,appreciated the fact that the CBSE did not postpone the paper to some other day. In the neighbouring Himachal Pradesh,too,hundreds of students appearing in the examination at different centres in Shimla went through testing time after reports about rescheduling of the paper reached them. Students had arrived in Shimlas leading schools from far-flung areas,travelling since Saturday. They had to wait for hours before the exam finally started at 12 noon,instead of the scheduled 9.30 am. Rikshit,a student from Junga near Shimla,said: We came to know about the paper leak only after reaching the examination centre. The authorities should take strict action against those indulging in unfair means and playing with the careers of students. Director,Technical Education,Vijay Chandan said: We also came to know about the paper leak in the morning. I hope the CBSE completes the exercise of finalisation of the results in time after this. While there were six centres in Shimla,several others centres were set up in Dharamsala and Solan,where too students were faced with a similar delay.
