Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has emphasised on the need to make examinations simpler, after over 10 lakh examinees skipped the state board tests in the last four days.

The sharp dip in the figure comes in the wake of steps taken by the Uttar Pradesh government against the education mafia which aids the use of unfair means.

When we said let's conduct a cheating-free exam (then), 10 lakhs students dropped out. This is the figure until now. I don't know what will happen in future - UP Chief Minister

The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister was speaking at the book launch of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Exam Warrior'. "A fear of exams is being created among students," the chief minister said, adding that the book by the prime minister will help address this aspect.

"We are observing and we will not leave it at this. It is necessary to think on how exams could be further simplified. - UP Chief Minister

Yogi in his statement also gave an example of a Kanwar yatra from Ghaziabad-Haridwar in which, he claimed, over 4 crore people took part last year. "When I took stock of the situation, I was told that several instructions had been given to avoid any untoward incident. The officials had stopped the use of mikes,conches and bells," he said.

The CM said that he asked the officials as to why were they trying to impose a ban on the yatra to which they replied that its route was passing through sensitive areas and it was difficult to manage them.

However, Yogi asked them to permit people to use mike, conches and bells as per the Supreme Court guidelines. People should feel inspired so that they themselves welcome the yatra and be part of it."

The CM asserted that had the government put barriers, then it would not have been possible to conduct the pilgrimage easily. "So, parents and teachers should not impose any kind of barriers on students and provide them with a conducive climate to cope with exams," he said drawing a parallel.

The Uttar Pradesh chief minister claimed that nearly six lakh youths had enrolled for a skill development programme in the last 10 months. Of these 2.5 lakh youth cleared the tests and more than 1.4 lakh got placed and are earning between Rs 15,000 to 40,000 sitting in villages.

He further said that use of technology in 14,000 ration shops in the state was helping to save approximately Rs 35 crore a month.