The West Bengal University of Health Sciences has issued a list of standard operating procedures (SOPs) for conducting examinations of medical students, which include mandatory frisking of all examinees and frequent visits to washrooms by the invigilators to prevent use of unfair means.

Malpractices in examinations and undue favours to examinees who have links with the ruling party’s student outfit or powerful lobbies was an allegation frequently raised by the junior doctors during their recent protests.

The point was also raised in their meeting with chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

The SOPs, issued on Wednesday, were based on a discussion with principals and the director of medical colleges on October 30.

The controller of examinations of the university signed the list of SOPs.

“Every examinee must go through frisking to make sure that they would not carry any electronic device or any other form of unfair means,” one of the SOPs says.

Frisking should be done by a person of the same gender only, it said.

One of the SOPs mentioned that washrooms have been used by examinees to employ unfair means.

The SOP suggests that “invigilators must frequently visit washroom”.

There will be “a register to note the time of entry and exit of an examinee from a washroom”. There will be one invigilator for 25 examinees.

It also mentioned that no examinee will be allowed to visit a washroom in the first and final 30 minutes of an exam.

One more point mentioned in the list of SOPs was the re-introduction of coding, decoding and randomisation of answer scripts. These measures are in process and they will be introduced soon.

A senior doctor said names used to be mentioned in answer scripts for the last few years.

This made it easier to target students not in the good books of those who have links with powerful lobbies and gave an advantage to those who
had connections with such lobbies.

“During our time answer scripts did not have names of examinees,” said the doctor.

The entire duration of the examination must be recorded on CCTV cameras. “All medical colleges must preserve CCTV footage of all university examinations for a year”, said the list of SOPs.

The university has also formed a six-member committee to review and strengthen the examination system.

The six members of the committee are Debasis Basu, pro-vice-chancellor of the West Bengal University of Health Sciences; Monimoy Bandyopadhyay, director of Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (IPGMER), SSKM Hospital; Indranil Biswas, principal of Medical College Kolkata; Santanu Tripathi, principal of Jagannath Gupta Institute of Medical Sciences and Hospital, Budge Budge; Arunima Chaudhuri, professor at Burdwan Medical College and Hospital and Yogiraj Ray, associate professor at IPGMER, SSKM Hospital

“We will look into how question papers are prepared, how answer scripts are distributed among examiners, and the process being followed in taking back the scripts. We will try to plug gaps in the system. We will look into undergraduate, postgraduate, postdoctoral and other examinations in which medical students appear,” a committee member said on Wednesday.

The issued list of SOPs also says that only the principal/director/dean of a medical college will download the question paper at least a day in advance. The “entire process of printing the question paper will be under CCTV surveillance”.

There will be observers for the examinations. Observers will reach the principal’s room with the letter of appointment issued by the university an hour before the examination.

The principals will send names of faculty members who can work as observers. The university will select from the pool of names.

“Many of these directions were already in practice. There were different circulars for them. Now everything has been brought together in one place,” said the principal of one medical college.

“For body frisking, the colleges will require police, both men and women,” said the principal.