In a grim reminder of the mass cheating that took place during the recent Board examinations in Vaishali district in Bihar, the authorities of Heavy Vehicle Factory (HVF) outsmarted the attempts of more than 50 candidates from Bihar to subvert the written examination held last Saturday for selecting skilled and semi-skilled workers for the factory. The HVF in Avadi near Chennai is an elite organisation under the Ministry of Defence which manufactures the main battle tank Arjun for the Indian Army.
Three persons identified as Prahlad Kumar, Chandan Kumar and Sanjith Singh Yadav, all from Bihar, who were shortlisted for an interview after the written examination held on March 1, were arrested by the Avadi Police following a complaint by HVF officials that fingerprints of candidates recorded at the time of examination did not match with the ones recorded at the time of the interview.
The trio conceded to HVF officials and the police that they hired the services of ‘proxies’ to write their papers. The applicants were caught as they were unaware of the new fingerprinting exercise held at the time of the written examination, according to a senior HVF official. However, what happened after the three were handed over to the police was more interesting.
More than 50 candidates waiting for their turn for the personal interview vanished from the venue, giving credence to doubts of the officials that there was massive impersonation during the examination. A senior HVF official who spoke to The Pioneer, on condition of anonymity, said that there were instances of impersonation during a written test held a few months ago to select trade apprentices. “We caught some of them but released all with a stern warning. This time we introduced the system of recording fingerprints at the time of examination as well as the interview,” he said.
The official said all the persons who were caught on Saturday and those who vanished before the interview were from Bihar, especially two districts. “But we don’t want to reveal the names of the districts. You have the names of the candidates and that is sufficient,” he said. William Selvamurthy, distinguished scientist and former Controller, Defence Research and Development Organisation, said in due course all Defence establishments and sensitive organisations in the country would introduce fingerprinting to prevent malpractices by the candidates.
The Avadi incident brought back memories of massive copying resorted to by students during the March 2015 Board examination in Vaishali district in Bihar which figured in all global TV Channels and newspapers. More than 500 students were caught and suspended on charges of massive copying from Vaishali during the Xth class Board examinations.