These districts include Allahabad, Kaushambi, Mathura, Balia, Meerut, Aligarh and Agra. The Board exams of Class X and XII will begin from March 2.

“There is no denying the fact that irregularities have been reported in allotting examination centres for several districts,” said Minister for Higher Secondary Education Rangnath Mishra. “But now we cannot change centres. We have thus decided to create eight special squads to check mass copying in these districts,” Mishra said after participating in the review meeting of the Board officers in Allahabad on Wednesday.

A committee, constituted to look into the complaints of allotting second grade examination centres has come up with its report of around 300 such units in 17 districts.

Following the report, the minister instructed Board secretary Prabha Tripathi to initiate departmental actions against the concerned district inspectors of schools.

Mishra also announced that a special checking drive will be launched during the exams by flying squads. It will monitor examinations conducted in the top ten schools of the districts.

The meeting, which was scheduled to discuss abolition of the merit list system, could not take up the issue for paucity of time as the minister was late for the meeting. Through the merit system, the Board declares the names of the students who have topped in various streams.

Last year, there was a controversy because of a faulty merit list.