The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) detected around 20 cases of answer-sheet mix-ups during the initial roll-out of its On-Screen Marking (OSM) system. Government sources revealed that over 13,000 answer sheets also had to be evaluated manually because scanning issues compromised the quality of the digital copies.
The discrepancy came to light when students accessed scanned versions of their answer sheets via the CBSE portal during the post-result verification process. A number of the students were shocked to realise that the answer sheets which had been uploaded by the authorities in their name were actually those of other candidates. In one such instance, Vedant, a class 12 student became famous on social media for having exposed the fraud where he realised that the Physics answer sheet provided by the board for a fresh review was not even his! There was yet another student named Sanjana who faced the same problem.
The digital assessment technique was applied for Class 12 board examinations, where more than 98 lakh copies of answer booklets, which is equivalent to almost 40 crore pages, were scanned. Out of this mammoth task, about 68,000 copies were rejected due to some quality problems and had to be scanned again. Despite the above correction step, more than 13,000 copies could not satisfy the criteria for digital assessment and had to go through manual scrutiny.
These operational flaws have affected CBSE's post-results services to an extent that CBSE is forced to delay opening of their Class 12 re-assessment portal by a day, from May 29 to June 1. The board anticipates a heavy volume of applications, given that over four lakh requests had already been registered by students seeking scanned copies of their answer books. Looking ahead, sources suggest that answer sheets may be made available alongside mark sheets through the DigiLocker platform from next year. While officials acknowledged the challenges of implementing a new system on such a vast scale, they maintained that technology-driven evaluation is the correct path for future examination reforms.
The project has also drawn political scrutiny. Congress member Rahul Gandhi criticised the move to give the project to Coempt which was originally called Globarena, citing its problematic history in Telangana. But according to sources, the procurement process was justified since it had been done in the usual manner. Coempt and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) emerged as the final two technically competent competitors for the tender. Coempt won the deal by offering a lower bid of roughly ₹24.75 per booklet after taxes, as opposed to ₹65-66 offered by TCS before taxes.
Also read: I take responsibility: Pradhan on CBSE OSM row
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