Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh Board of Secondary Education High School and Intermediate Board Examinations 2026 will be conducted from February 18 to March 12, 2026. This year, a total of 53,37,778 candidates are registered, including 27,61,696 High School and 25,76,082 Intermediate students. To ensure completely cheating-free, transparent and orderly examinations, a total of 8033 examination centres have been established across the state, including 596 government schools, 3453 government-aided schools and 3984 self-financed schools.
Minister of State for Secondary Education (Independent Charge) Gulab Devi inaugurated the state-level control room established at the Directorate of Education (Secondary), Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow camp office before the examinations. She said that in accordance with the Chief Minister’s intent, the examination system has been made completely technology-based and transparent. A total of 18 districts have been declared sensitive, while 222 examination centres have been categorized as highly sensitive and 683 as sensitive. STF and local intelligence units will remain active throughout the examination period and highly sensitive centres will be inspected twice a day.
For monitoring of the examinations, two CCTV cameras with voice recording have been installed in every examination room, along with routers, DVR and high-speed internet facility. Live monitoring of the entire examination period will be conducted through webcasting. Strong rooms created at examination centres will be under 24×7 CCTV surveillance.
In addition, the strong rooms, question paper distribution rooms and answer sheet sealing-packing rooms of every examination centre in all 75 districts will also be monitored online.
To strengthen the arrangements, 8033 centre superintendents, 8033 external centre superintendents, 8033 static magistrates, 1210 sector magistrates and 427 zonal magistrates have been appointed. Along with this, 69 divisional and 440 district mobile squads have been constituted. State-level observers have also been appointed for all 75 districts and 18 divisions to ensure that there is no laxity in examination conduct.
For assistance to candidates and parents, toll-free helpline numbers have been issued from the state-level control room in Lucknow: 18001806607 and 18001806608. In addition, the toll-free numbers of the Uttar Pradesh Board of Secondary Education, Prayagraj are 18001805310 and 18001805312. Complaints and suggestions can also be registered through email, Facebook, X handle and WhatsApp. Control centres have also been established at Prayagraj headquarters and the regional offices in Varanasi, Meerut, Bareilly and Gorakhpur.
Special security arrangements have been made to prevent cheating. For emergency situations, reserve question paper sets for all subjects have been kept safe in double-lock cupboards. Answer sheets include four-colour serial numbers, the Board logo and micro “UPMSP” marking, so that the possibility of swapping is eliminated. This year, for the first time, the examinations of the Uttar Pradesh Sanskrit Education Council will also be monitored online.
Under the Uttar Pradesh Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024, strict action will be taken if any irregularity is found in question paper creation, printing, distribution or evaluation. The minister said that misconduct in public examinations is an injustice to the future of youth and the government is committed to strict action against such elements. She wished all candidates and appealed to them to appear in the examinations with confidence and without fear and take it as a positive opportunity.
On this occasion, Additional Chief Secretary (Basic and Secondary Education) Parth Sarthi Sen Sharma, Secretary Secondary Education Chand Bhushan Singh, Director General School Education Monika Rani, Special Secretary Secondary Education Umesh Chandra and Director of Education (Secondary) Dr Mahendra Dev were present.
