Lucknow, Feb 14 : The UP Board Secondary Education Board has initiated a slew of measures to ensure free and fair board exams, scheduled to be held from February 16 to March 4.

Around 59 lakh students will be taking the examinations, according to the official spokesman.  The Board has identified 936 examination centres for Class 10 and 12 as sensitive, besides another 242 as highly sensitive.  This year 31.1 lakh students have been registered for Class 10 and 27.7 lakh for Class 12. These candidates will take the exam at 8,753 exam centres.  In all, 170 imprisoned candidates have also registered themselves.  Sixteen districts, including Ballia, Azamgarh, Mau, Ghazipur, Chandauli, Jaunpur, Deoria, Gonda, Mathura, Aligarh, Mainpuri, Etah, Baghpat, Hardoi, Prayagraj and Kaushambhi have been identified as sensitive.  A call centre will also be operational during the examinations with two helpline numbers.  The 'monitoring and control room' set up for CCTV surveillance is located in the office of the secondary education directorate in the state capital.