Chandigarh: Haryana's Technical Education Minister A.C. Chaudhary on Sunday warned students to beware of a "guess paper" mafia which was operating in the country to mint money from them.

In a statement here, Chaudhary said some people on Sunday spread rumors that the engineering diploma entrance examination papers in Haryana had been leaked.

These rumours are false and baseless. Not even a single question of the leaked paper matched with the original question paper. A mafia is operating in the country, befooling people in the name of getting papers leaked.

They are only amassing wealth by preparing guess papers," Chaudhary said.

The minister appealed to parents of the students appearing in the examination to remain vigilant against such people.

"In Haryana, there is a foolproof system that provides no scope of paper leakage," he claimed.

Over 123,000 aspirants sat in the entrance examination on Sunday.

Haryana has increased seats in technical education institutions from 9,700 to 25,052. Chaudhary said these would be further increased to 50,000 by next year.

The minister added that this was being done keeping in view the expansion of the multi-national companies (MNCs) which will require more technical manpower in future.

Chaudhary said the Haryana government had received demands for 4,300 technically- skilled manpower from Europe and the Gulf countries. He added that the demand was likely to increase up to 10,000. IANS