Lucknow, Feb 18 (IANS): Over 56 lakh candidates are appearing for the Uttar Pradesh Secondary Education Board class 10, and 12 examinations which began on Tuesday.

Almost 30 lakh class 10 students will be taking the elementary Hindi and 26 lakh class 12 students are appearing for general Hindi exam on the first day.

According to deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma who also holds the education portfolio, the examinations are being held at 7,784 centres across the state.

Both high school and intermediate examinations will end on March 6.

In class 10, out of 30 lakh candidates who registered online, 20,789 are appearing as private candidates. Out of 26 lakh candidates who had registered for class 12 exams, 69,983 are private candidates.

The state government, this year, has made extensive arrangements to check the copying and nab the copying mafia who facilitate mass cheating in UP Board exams.

The state government has set up a state-level 'monitoring and control room' for CCTV surveillance and to monitor voice recordings.

Nearly 2 lakh CCTV cameras have been installed at 7,784 centres in 75 districts of UP. Around 2 lakh invigilators have been put on duty.

The Uttar Pradesh Secondary Education Board (UPSEB) has identified 938 centres as 'sensitive' and 395 as 'hyper-sensitive' which means these centres are vulnerable for cheating.

The minister said that the sensitive districts will use colour-coded and threaded answer-copies. The class 10 answer-copies will be pink and yellow and that of class 12 will be green and blue. The idea is to ensure that they cannot be replaced or their pages taken out by any unauthorized person.

In a first, the UP government has also launched a Twitter handle, for immediate redressal of any kind of complaints and queries.

In addition, helpline numbers for the control room, e-mail id and toll free numbers can be used to register complaints of anything related to UP Board examinations.