Maharashtra: Over 15 lakh students to take Class 12 board exams from today

Out of the 15 sensitive centres in Mumbai division, eight are located in Palghar district, five in Thane, and one each in Mumbai and Raigad districts. These centres have been identified based on cheating cases reported by flying squads during the past five years. Rajendra Ahire, chairman of the Mumbai division of the Maharashtra state board, said, “These centres were chosen because of past incidents where exam centre staff either failed to detect cheating or were complicit in enabling it…”

In addition to external staff, all sensitive centres will be under drone surveillance to ensure compliance with exam regulations. To further strengthen the monitoring process, staff members at all centres will wear identity cards, and for external staff at sensitive centres, there will be a face-recognition system. Moreover, any exam centre found to be involved in cheating or other malpractices this year will have its exam centre approval revoked.

Students have to enter the exam hall 30 minutes before the actual exam time. Accordingly, for the 11 am paper, students have to be seated by 10.30 am, whereas for the 3 pm paper, students should be seated by 2.30 pm. Exams will begin at the scheduled time but with an extra 10 minutes — the 11 am slot will end at 2.10 pm, instead of 2 pm; and the 3 pm slot will end at 6.10 pm instead of 6 pm. Earlier students were given an additional 10 minutes before the scheduled time of the beginning of the paper to read the question paper. But after several instances of images of question papers going viral, the state board from last year’s exam has started a new practice of adding these extra 10 minutes at the end.