With the Higher Secondary Examinations in West Bengal set to begin on Thursday, February 12, the Kolkata Police on Monday evening issued a notification regulating the movement of vehicles and pedestrians in the city limits on all days of the examinations.
There are 134 centres in Kolkata where 32,256 candidates will be appearing for the examinations that will conclude on February 27.
The order stated, “all classes of vehicles and all kinds of traffic, including pedestrian traffic, for the city of Kolkata shall be regulated in the manner prescribed below, notwithstanding any other orders in force” on February 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, and 27.
According to the advisory, goods vehicles will be allowed to ply within the city limits only from 6 am to noon on exam dates.
However, emergency vehicles such as vehicles carrying LPG cylinders, petroleum, oil, lubricants, oxygen, milk, medicine, vegetable/fruits/fish, etc and CNG-carrying vehicles, and port-bound vehicles are allowed to ply up to 8 am on the examination days.
Vehicular traffic may also be diverted, regulated, or restricted in and around the examination centres as and when considered necessary by the traffic police on duty.
The notification will remain in force in addition to the other normal restrictions on those days, which are not repugnant to the above.”
This year, 7.10 lakh students are appearing in the state for the board examinations, out of which 3,95,079 are girls and 3,15,732 are boys. “In all districts, we are seeing that the number of girls appearing for the exam is more than boys,” said Chiranjib Bhattacharya, president of WBCHSE.
CCTV surveillance, other security measures
Regarding security, the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education (WBCHSE) has made CCTV surveillance mandatory at all examination centres, this year too. CCTV cameras must be installed at the entry gates of all exam centres and inside venue supervisors’ (confidential) rooms. The move aims to maintain the confidentiality of question papers and the sanctity of the examinations. CCTV footage must be stored securely by venue supervisors for one month after the examination. Authorities may inspect the recordings if needed.
Mobiles or any electronic gadgets will not be allowed in the examination hall. If any examiner is found with any form of electronic gadgets — be it a mobile or smartphone — the enrolment and entire examination of the candidate will be cancelled this year.
Exam timings
With three examinations of Class 12 running simultaneously — Semester IV, Semester III supplementary, and the old system — Semester IV examination will be held from 10 am to noon, while the vocational subjects and music and visual arts will be held from 10 am to 11.15 am.
For Semester III supplementary, the examinations will be conducted from 1 pm t0 2.15 pm. For vocational subjects, music and visual arts, the timing is from 1 pm to 1.45 pm.
The exam timing for the old system is from 10 am to 1.15 pm, and students are expected to reach the examination centres by 9 am.
According to the Board, there are 2,103 venues in the state, out of which 822 are main centres, and 104 have been identified as sensitive venues.
Bhattacharya stated that since there would be two semester exams and one exam in the old system, the question papers will be stored in cloth bags of different colours — for Semester IV, the cloth bags and question paper will be white, Semester III supplementary yellow, and the old system question paper will be in a blue bag.