patna over 18 lakh students of bihar and jharkhand would be taking the class 10 and 12 cbse board examinations starting march 1 students of over 400 schools of bihar and almost 300 schools of jharkhand are busy with lastminute preparation to take the examinations while over 114 lakh students would be taking class 10 examination almost 70000 students would be appearing for class 12 board in the region the newlyformed biharjharkhand region of central board of secondary education cbse has set up 175 centres across the region with 97 centres in bihar including over 20 in the state capital the first paper for class 10 students is painting on march 1 while for class 12 examinees it is english elective functional english or english core all preparations have been made to hold free and fair examinations and admit cards have been issued to the students said an official at cbses regional office in the state capital he said while the number of students taking class 12 board examinations was almost 36750 in bihar the corresponding figure for jharkhand stood at around 32800 besides almost 3000 students would be taking class 10 indian certificate of secondary education icse examinations across 31 centres in patna the first paper is mathematics on february 27 while icse has no regional office here don bosco academy patna is the convener of the examinations for icse and isc examinations the indian school certificate class 12 examination is being taken by almost 500 students at five centres in the city all preparations have been made and question papers are kept at banks they would be dispatched to the examination centres on the respective days of the papers said eric derozario administrator dba he added that school inspectors would also visit different examination centres to check free and fair conduct of examinations while intermediate examinations of bihar school examination board bseb commenced on february 18 matriculation examination beginning march 12 will be taken by almost 14 lakh students this year