Will netas stop the Ballia cheat mafia?

BALLIA: They aren’t talking polarisation here, or demonetisation. The PM’s graveyard talk fi nds little traction. In east UP, they are discussing something more fundamental: Cheating in exams and the nexus that runs the racket.
Narendra Modi brought up the issue at a recent poll rally in Gonda, expressing concern over the future of UP. Ballia and some neighbouring towns are ground zero.The cheating mafi a fl ourish here. Students, also from neighbouring states, eager to dazzle in public exams with no effort, make a beeline for these areas and take the UP board exams. They get in touch with the scamsters, who organise admissions to state-board affi liated institutions and ensure clients get pass certifi cates with divisions of their choice.
BJP went after the masterminds of the fraud in 1992 and lost the elections. SP won and immediately scrapped the anti-copying ordinance BJP had promulgated. Recently, responding to Modi’s concern, CM Akhilesh Yadav dismissed the issue as not worth losing sleep over. So, Ballia’s cheating factory prospers.
Every year hundreds of private and non-affi liated colleges apply for examination centre status. Once the approvals come, they conduct high school and intermediate examinations with assorted facilities to enable cheating. There’s no political will to end the menace.
The UP Secondary Teachers’ Association is worried and wants the enrolment and approval system for exam centres to go online. But the UP secondary education department hasn’t raised a fi nger to stop the fraudsters. Districts such as Kaushambi, Aligarh, Hardoi, Deoria, Mau, Azamgarh, Bahraich, Gonda, Basti, Shravasti Gorakhpur and Ballia are notorious.
R P Mishra, secretary of the teachers’ association, says UP has “over 1 lakh sham private colleges and coaching centres that register Class IX and XI students”. Ballia provides ideal conditions to these fake colleges. Vigilance is lax.
This year, the town had 317 high school and intermediate exam centres for 2.20 lakh students. Of these, almost 50% are self-fi nanced. In 2015, government limited the number of such centres in Ballia to 224. But at last count the number stood at 317.
Geeta Yadav, a high school teacher here, says, “The rule is that while allocating exam centres, priority should be given to government and aided colleges. Self-fi nanced institutions should be considered only when no option is left. But the district inspector of schools has been on a spree to increase exam centres, mostly private colleges.”
Ballia teachers claim that until 2012, every year around 30,000-40,000 students from Punjab, Haryana, Bihar and even Nepal take exams here.
The education mafi a mints around Rs 3,500 crore every year, estimates say.
SP Singh, former principal secretary, secondary education, UP, now leads a campaign called Nakal Roko Abhiyaan. “I had black-listed around 255 such fake centres for facilitating cheating.
These often hold exams in the open or under tin-sheds, which obviously help copying,” he said.