Hyderabad: Amid calls to do away with the 'one-minute delay' clause for the Intermediate Public Examinations (IPE), the Telangana State Board of Intermediate Education (BIE) said in a statement on Friday night that a grace period of five minutes will be given to students who reach their centres after 9 am.
"Students should reach their exam centres at 8.45 am for the Intermediate first and secondary examinations conducted across the state," the notice read.
The BIE advised the respective district authorities to allow the students a five minutes grace period if they reach the examination centre late due to specific reasons.
This comes a day after a second-year intermediate student died by suicide in Adilabad district when he couldn't reach his centre on time.
Concerns were raised by the Balala Hakku Sankshema Sangham (Child Rights Welfare Association) regarding the stringent rule. The association demanded the withdrawal of regulations penalising even minor delays in reaching the exam centre.
Injamuri Raghunandan, sangham secretary, appealed to Chief Minister Revanth Reddy to respond with a humanitarian perspective.
Meawhile, about 20,000 students, or four per cent, stayed away from the English Paper-I exam on Friday. Of the 5,00,936 registered candidates, 4,80,542 were present. Four cases of malpractice were reported, three from Karimnagar and one Nizamabad.
