KARACHI, May 13: The Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) part-I Science (pre-medical and pre-engineering), General Science (Computer) and Home Economics annual examinations -2008 in the city began here on Tuesday amid complaints of frequent power failures and absence of police contingents from various examination centers.

The examinations of Intermediate (part-II) of all the above mentioned groups are scheduled to commence on Wednesday.

Centre superintendents complained that although Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code had been imposed by the relevant authorities to help prevent the presence of outsiders within a radius of 60 yards of the examination centres and to avoid any law and order situation, no police force was deployed at various centers.

A high-level team comprising the chairman of the Board of Intermediate Education, Karachi (BIEK) Prof Anwar Ahmed Zai, Director-General (Colleges), Sindh, Prof Rafiq Siddiqui, BIEK’s Deputy Controller of Examinations Mohammad Ali and Prof Iftikhar Azmi, paid surprise visits to different examination centres to review and monitor the examination process. The committee also expressed its concern over the absence of police mobiles from outside various examination centres.

During their visit to the APWA Higher Secondary School, Liaquatabad, they also saw that candidates were taking their examination in the absence of electricity. However, a police mobile was present outside the centre.

The chairman of the BIEK has requested Karachi Electric Supply Company’s (KESC) high-ups to exempt examination centres from load-shedding from 9am to 12noon and from 2pm to 5pm t so that candidates do not face any difficulty while taking their papers in the current hot and humid weather.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the BIEK said that except for Raa’na Liaquat Ali Khan College of Home Economics where paper began half-an-hour late, papers at all other centres across the city were conducted smoothly and according to the schedule, besides no untoward incident was reported from any of the 89 examination centres set up at colleges and higher secondary schools.

He said that all those candidates who took their examination at the RLAK College of Home Economics were, however, given extra time to compensate for the loss of time. Explaining the reason for this delay, he said that the vehicle which was supposed to deliver the papers to the centre, had developed some fault that caused the delay.

When asked about the number of cases pertaining to the use of unfair means reported during Tuesday’s examinations, he said that not a single such case was reported because it was Islamiat’s paper. “In fact, most of the unfair means cases are normally detected on those days when papers of English, Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics subjects are held”, he said.

As many as 77,662 candidates have been registered with the board to take exams pertaining to pre-engineering, pre-medical, home economics and science general groups. In the Commerce group, the total number of candidates registered to take exams is 72,133.In the second phase, the examinations of Arts groups will be conducted from June 10.

The total number of registered candidates for this group is 31,126, who will appear at 41 examinations centres.