There seems to be no end to repeated errors being made by the Telangana State Board of Intermediate Education (TSBIE). In yet another fiasco, question papers of the 'Intermediate Advance Supplementary Examinations' went missing from a police station in Warangal where they were stored, on Wednesday.
The police, who had kept the papers in two trunks in their lock-up, said that the papers of Zoology, Mathematics and English, which are scheduled to be held from June 7, went missing.
After the incident came to light, the TSBIE, in a press release on Wednesday, said, "It has come to knowledge from a preliminary report that two trunk boxes containing question papers, which were kept at Warangal police station, were missing. The exams will be conducted as per schedule from 7/6/19 with new sets of question papers."
A complaint has been lodged over the issue and an enquiry has begun with Warangal ACP Narasaiah as the investigating officer, to ascertain how the papers went missing.
Media reports state that a total of 4,63,236 first and second-year students had registered for the exams, which are scheduled to be held in 857 test centres across Telangana.
The TSBIE has been at the centre of controversy since last month with many demanding that the board's Secretary, A Ashok, be sacked.
The TSBIE had declared the results of Intermediate (the state government equivalent of Classes 11 and 12) examinations on April 18. Out of 9.43 lakh students who appeared in the exams, 5.6 lakh had cleared it. After the announcement of results, several errors by the authorities in the evaluation of answer scripts and processing of results came to light, triggering a huge public outcry.
After over 20 students killed themselves, allegedly dejected with their marks, opposition parties and student bodies took to the streets demanding justice for the students.
Last week, in what can only be described as a crass display of insensitivity, the TSBIE in a press release, denied reports that a first-year Inter student who took her own life after she was declared 'failed' in the exams, had passed. This instance which came to light last week was most damning for the BIE, whose massive bungling in valuation and processing of results allegedly led to the death of over 20 students. Insisting that Anamika Arutla had failed, the TSBIE claimed that it was a 'clerical error' which led to the re-verified paper showing that Anamika had passed.
On May 27, the TSBIE announced the results of the re-verified answer scripts of over 3.82 lakh students who had failed to obtain passing marks. Following this process, 1,137 students, who were earlier declared "failed", cleared the exams.
IANS inputs