Anil Chaturvedi is new ERA secretary
PRAYAGRAJ: Anil Bhushan Chaturvedi, an officer of the 1995 batch of Provincial Education Services, took charge as the new secretary of Examination Regulatory Authority (ERA), Uttar Pradesh, on Friday morning, informed ERA officials.
The state government on December 30 had appointed Chaturvedi to the post that had fallen vacant following Sanjay Kumar Upadhyay’s suspension and his subsequent arrest in connection with Uttar Pradesh Teachers’ Eligibility Test (UPTET)-2021 paper leak incident.
Chaturvedi was till now working as joint director (training) at the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT), Lucknow. Earlier, Chaturvedi had served as secretary, Examination Regulatory Authority since September 2018 to June 2021 when he was transferred to Lucknow on June 17, 2021.
“Conducting the UPTET-2021 at the earliest in a transparent and fair manner will be my first priority,” he said.
The state government is believed to have appointed Chaturvedi to the post for a second stint just to ensure that UPTET-2021 gets re-conducted at the earliest. During his first tenure, Chaturvedi had successfully conducted 69,000 assistant teachers’ recruitment exam, besides the UPTET editions of 2018 and 2019.
To ensure that UPTET-2021 gets re-conducted in a month’s time would be a big challenge for Chaturvedi as he would have to ensure that the question papers and the OMR sheets gets
EARLIER, CHATURVEDI HAD SERVED AS SECRETARY, ERA, FROM SEPTEMBER 2018 TO JUNE 2021
printed afresh while maintaining strict confidentiality.
Following the paper leak five days back, UP STF, which is probing the case, has already arrested the owner of the printing press of New Delhi to which the task of printing the question paper and the OMR sheets had been given.
Following the paper leak hours before UPTET-2021 was to be held across the state on November 28, the state government was forced to cancel it.
The government had announced that the UPTET-2021 would be conducted again in a month’s time for which candidates neither need to fill any form nor deposit extra fee.
Meanwhile, Manoj Kumar Ahirwar, appointed as the new registrar of ERA, the post which had been lying vacant for a month after Rajshekhar Singh’s retirement on October 31, too joined his duties on Friday.