The Board of Intermediate Education on Monday lifted the five-year cap for clearing backlogs, allowing the students to appear only for backlog papers and clear them unlike earlier when they had to take all the papers afresh even if they failed only in a single paper.

This relaxation which is applicable only for this year, will benefit 20,000 students who failed to clear Intermediate exams even after five years. The board had introduced the five-year cap on clearing backlogs where the students had to forego all papers even if they fail to clear a single paper after five years. The rule was relaxed following representations from students and the AP government junior lecturers association.