New Delhi: On Sunday i.e. March 14, 2010, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) created six zones to decentralize the evaluation of answer scripts. The University has taken the step in order to ensure an efficient and faster mode of evaluation. Presently, it has more than three million students. V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai also mentioned that IGNOU recently decentralized the evaluation of answer scripts at five more zonal evaluation centers at Chennai, Patna, Pune, Lucknow and Guwahati in addition to Delhi.
Due to decentralization, revaluation of answer script, photocopies of answer scripts and early declaration of results of term end examinations shall be handled at the respective evaluation centers. Initially, it was centralized at IGNOU headquarters at New Delhi, since the inception of the university in 1985.
The evaluation centre at Delhi shall have jurisdiction within Delhi and all examination centres of Faridabad, Gurgaon, Noida and Ghaziabad. The Chennai centre shall have jurisdiction of all examination centres within Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu (area under Madurai Regional Centre) and Maharashtra (area under Pune RC), and Andaman & Nicobar Islands.
IGNOU has divided Uttar Pradesh under the two regional centres - one comprising Varanasi and Aligarh regional centres and other the Lucknow regional centre. Lucknow will take care of Varanasi and Aligarh centres, while the Patna zone will manage the Lucknow regional centre.
Similarly, the Pune centre shall have jurisdiction of all examination centres within Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Mumbai, Maharashtra (area under Mumbai and Nagpur regional centres), Rajasthan and Goa. The evaluation centre at Guwahati shall have jurisdiction of all examination centres within Tripura, Nagaland, Mizoram, Sikkim, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya.
