Bhubaneswar: As many as 5.87 lakh students are appearing for the Annual HSC Examination 2019 conducted by the Board of Secondary Education (BSE) in Odisha which began today.
The examination is being held at 2,953 centres across the State while a three-tier security system have been put in place to avoid malpractice and ensure smooth conduct of the exam. The administration has also clamped Section 144 at some of the sensitive centres.
The students were allowed to enter the examination centres at 9 am today. However, the entry timing at the centres would be 9.15 am from the second examination.
The OMR sheets were distributed at 9.30 am while the booklets were given at 9.45 am. The examination started at 10 am and is scheduled to conclude at 12.30 pm.
The Board has said that the candidates will be allotted an additional 15 minutes during Mathematics examination.
This year, there will be four parallel sets of questions papers for objective and subjective questions. The students will have to score at least 15 marks each in both the sets to pass in a subject, reports added.
As scheduled, the question papers that were dispatched from the 304 nodal centres last evening, reached the examination centres between 6 am and 8.30 am today.
A total of 58 flying squads and 44 special squads of the board have been formed this year and one squad in each zone will guard the examination centres.
Similarly, the district collectors have also been asked to form independent squads in their respective districts and conduct checking in the examination centres.
Besides, the BSE has also prohibited anyone to carry mobile phones to the examination centres to ensure that question papers cannot be leaked through social media.