Uttar Pradesh Board of Secondary Education (UPBSE) will make Aadhaar compulsory in order to register for Class 10 and Class 12 exams from the next year,

The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh is set to make Aadhaar cards mandatory for those who want to give the state board exams.

In a move that is apparently aimed at reigning in the cheating mafia and proxy registrations, the Uttar Pradesh Board of Secondary Education (UPBSE) will make Aadhaar mandatory in order to register for Class 10 and Class 12 exams from the next year, according to Patrika.

“The government wants to link with Aadhaar so that each student has an individual identity and fraudulent registrations for Class 9 and 11 and dubious filing of forms for Classes 10 and 12 can be curbed,” News18 quotes UPBSE secretary Shail Yadav.

The Uttar Pradesh government believes that it will also help the state authorities to break the nexus of forged marksheets as a unique identification at the time of exam and registration will help the UPBSE keep track of attendance and individual performance.

The decision comes as part of a series of initiatives aimed at an attempted clean up of the notorious cheating mafia in the state. Earlier, the Uttar Pradesh government had launched a WhatsApp helpline for students to lodge complaint about any wrongdoings at exam centres. The government had also came down heavily upon exam centres where mass copying takes place.

The government had announced that such complaints will be taken seriously and all such centres will be blacklisted, according to a report in The Indian Express. UPBSE has also resorted to summoning random copies from sensitive districts and get them evaluated by specially-appointed examiners. This will apparently help to control cheating and minimise instances of biased evaluation by examiners, according to Hindustan Times.

"The Board will specially focus on Barabanki district which has been producing toppers for the last few years. Other districts like Kaushambi and Ghazipur will also be under the scanner as copying mafia is active in the district," the Hindustan Times report said.

The state government had given strict instructions to UPBSE to conduct exams within a span of 15 days and finish evaluation over another 15 days to finish the declaration of results in a timely fashion, without leaving much time for nefarious elements to sabotage a fair evaluation process.

This year, the board had also introduced digital admit cards to avoid cases of impersonation and ensured three-tier security and deployment of 'flying squad' at various examination centres. The board had also set multiple question papers with same difficulty levels to keep a tab on question paper leaks, according to another report in Hindustan Times.