chandigarh imagine travelling nearly a 100 kms on narrow village roads navigating four railway crossings and two rivers enroute to arrive at a centre to take class x cbse board exams shocking but true as far as a few hundred children of patti the first town from the indopak border in punjab are concerned parents of students studying in cbseaffiliated schools are up in arms against the board as the city has not seen a cbse centre ever since india became a free country hundreds of angry parents have registered their angst with schools affiliated to cbse after it became known that the centre for students from patti khem karan has now been made at chabbal another small border town since there are few cbse affiliated schools in the area children living in villages barely two kilometers from pakistan border will also have to travel that far to give board exams this is insane how can a child think rationally and give the tough board exams after travelling for so long and undertaking an arduous journey already the stress for board exams is high and competition is stiff said gulshinder singh father of rattanjeet a class x student studying in patti we have made several representations to cbse in mohali and delhi but to no avail every year we seek permission but this border town of patti has never ever been chosen for a cbse centre and india has been a free country for over 60 years said joshinder a principal requesting anonymity last year tarn taran which is about 30 kms from patti was made a centre but this year intraschool rivalries are being blamed for the shift in cbse centre the schools have vested interests and give misleading information to cbse authorities nobody from cbse does a ground reality check and it is the students who suffer said manjit kaur mother of a student who has registered a protest with cbse speaking to toi r j khanderao regional director cbse said we have received complaints about inconvenience being caused to students these have been verified and we have been told that the distance though is an issue is manageable we do not encourage selfcentres and limited options have compelled us to keep the centre a little distance away