It will be testing times for 6.1 lakh students from 4,526 PU colleges as the II Pre-University (PU) exam will be held from March 12 to 27 at 1,017 centres across the State. A new addition this time could be the CCTV cameras at centres deemed “hyper-sensitive.”
At a press conference here on Thursday, Director, Department of PU, Sushama Godbole, said 73 centres had been declared “hypersensitive,” while 205 were “sensitive” centres. The most number of hyper-sensitive centres (21) were in Belagavi.
Bengaluru North had 66 centres overall, with two hypersensitive centres, while six of the 76 centres in Bengaluru South fell under the category. “Though the department wants to install CCTV cameras at the 73 centres, we are awaiting the government’s approval,” she said. Of the 6.1 lakh candidates, while 4.96 lakh are fresh and 82,067 repeaters. There are 31,972 candidates writing the exam as private candidates this time despite many universities, including Bangalore University, announcing that they will not be allowed to take admissions in degree colleges as they do not have the required ten-plus-two (10+2) qualification.
Despite the threat from a section of PU lecturers to boycott evaluation as their demands — mostly related to salaries — have not been met, Ms. Godbole said evaluation would begin around March 29. “It will be over in about a fortnight,” she added.
