Patna: The stage is set for a fair and peaceful 2026 annual Class X examination of the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) commencing on Tuesday. More than 15.12 lakh students will write the examination, of whom 7.85 lakh are girls and 7.26 lakh are boys.The examinations will be held in two sittings (1st shift from 9:30am and 2nd shift from 2pm) at 1,699 examination centres across the state. Around 71,022 examinees would take the examination at 70 centres in Patna district. On the first day, students will take the examination in their mother tongue (language) paper.BSEB chairman Anand Kishor said all the district magistrates, superintendents of police and district education officers have been given necessary instructions to ensure smooth conduct of examinations in a transparent manner under tight security arrangements. The DMs and SPs will be on constant move, visiting from one centre to another, ensuring that no unauthorized person is allowed to enter the examination centre.“The examinees will be allowed to enter the exam centre from 8.30am to 9am in the first sitting and from 1pm to 1.30pm in the second shift. Each examinee will be thoroughly frisked at two places, first at the entrance gate of the centre by police and magistrates and then at the entrance of the examination hall by the invigilators,” Kishor said, adding that there would be one invigilator for every 25 examinees. Except for the centre superintendent, no invigilator, examinee or other personnel would be allowed to carry cellphones with them in the examination hall.A control room (with phone numbers 0612-2232257 and 0612- 2232227) started functioning at 6pm on Monday evening to ensure safe and smooth conduct of examinations throughout the state. The control room would function till 6pm on February 25, the last day of examinations. Examinees can contact the control room in case of any difficulty, which would be resolved immediately by the authorities concerned.The examinees would not be allowed to carry calculators, mobile phones, bluetooth, earphones or any other electronic gadgets with them inside the examination hall. To ensure the conduct of fair examinations, CCTV would be installed at all the centres and there would be a videography of the entire centre. One videographer would be posted for 500 examinees. All the invigilators and other officials and staff would be issued identity cards.“The BSEB would distribute pre-printed answer books and OMR sheets bearing the candidate’s photographs. The examinees would be getting 100% additional choice in both objective and subjective questions,” the chairman said, adding that the answer books and OMR sheets would be handed over to the examinees simultaneously, but OMR sheets would be collected earlier at the specified time. There will be 10 sets of question papers (A to J) in each subject.Altogether 152 model exam centres (four in each district) have been created where all the examinees, invigilators, police, magistrates and other supporting staff would be women only. In Patna district, the model centres will be Govt Girls’ Higher Secondary School, Bankipur, Govt Girls’ Higher Secondary School, Shashtri Nagar, Kamla Nehru Girls’ High School-Yarpur and Govt Girls’ High School-Gardanibagh.
