Students in tsunami-affected areas can choose to take their Central Board of Secondary Education board examinations either next month with the rest of the country or on rescheduled dates from May 17, CBSE Chairman Ashok Ganguly said on Friday.

While the Class 10 examinations will be held from March one to 24, the Class 12 tests will be from March one to April one. In tsunami-affected areas, however, the examinations will also be conducted from May 17 to June six and May 17 to June four, respectively. Practical examinations will be held after the theory papers, Ganguly told reporters in New Delhi.

Students from these areas have also been permitted to change their examination centres.

There are about 70,000 students registered for the board examinations in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where the December 26 killer waves caused widespread devastation. Two thousand of them are in the Nicobar group of islands.

"We will make arrangements for all the students in the Andaman group to take the examinations in March itself. However, we are not yet sure how many will finally appear," Ganguly said.

In the Nicobar group of islands, however, no examinations will be conducted in March.

"Nine of the 13 centres in the Nicobar group were badly damaged. So it will not be possible for us to conduct tests there now," he said.

Ganguly said CBSE would make efforts to declare the results by June 20, even though students opting for the rescheduled dates would be completing the examinations only on June six.

"A Supreme Court directive stipulates that all board results must be declared by June 10, but we will pray for added time in this case because of the exceptional circumstances," he said.

The CBSE will also ensure that these students can sit for competitive examinations, like the All India Pre-Medical Test.

"In fact, we are considering waiving the application fees for entrance tests conducted by us for students from tsunami-affected areas," he added.

A record 10 lakh students will appear for the board examinations. While 6.06 lakh students will appear for the Class 10 examination, 4.21 lakh will take the Class 12 tests.

"This is the first time we have crossed the 10 lakh students mark. Last year, 9.62 lakh students had appeared," Ganguly said.

There will be 4.29 lakh girl candidates taking the examination this year, about 30,000 more than in 2004.