NEW DELHI: The controversy surrounding the Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE’s) On-Screen Marking (OSM) system has now entered an even more politically explosive phase, with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi directly questioning how the digital evaluation contract was awarded and whether tender conditions were gradually relaxed to favour a particular company.In a strongly worded post on X on Friday, Rahul Gandhi accused CBSE of repeatedly diluting technical requirements after failing to secure qualified bidders during earlier tender rounds. He alleged that the eventual winner, COEMPT, only qualified after critical standards linked to scanning quality, software maturity and infrastructure requirements were lowered.“Read this story. Carefully,” Rahul Gandhi wrote, before laying out a detailed attack on the tendering process behind the OSM rollout.“CBSE called for OSM tenders thrice. Zero bids the first time. No qualified bidder the second time. And finally, the technical bar was lowered until COEMPT could clear it,” he wrote.The remarks come at a time when CBSE is already facing mounting scrutiny over complaints linked to the digital evaluation system introduced for the 2026 Class 12 board examinations. Students across the country have alleged blurred answer sheets, missing pages, mismatched scanned copies and technical failures during the re-evaluation process.What makes the latest political attack significant is that it shifts the controversy away from operational glitches alone and towards the larger question of how the system itself was procured and implemented.“The rules kept changing until someone qualified”According to documents reviewed by Hindustan Times and details cited by Rahul Gandhi, CBSE floated tenders for the OSM project three separate times before finally awarding the contract.The first round reportedly received no bids. In the second round, no bidder qualified technically. It was only during the third tender process, issued in August 2025 — barely six months before nationwide implementation — that several key conditions were modified.Those changes are now at the centre of the controversy.Rahul Gandhi alleged that the Board progressively lowered technical safeguards to ensure the process finally produced a winner.“Scanning resolution cut. Robotic scanner requirement dropped. CMMI certification lowered from Level 5 to Level 3. Penalties for errors in answer sheets removed,” he wrote.The Congress leader also pointed out that Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), one of India’s largest IT companies, had reportedly qualified technically in the final round but still lost the contract to COEMPT during the financial evaluation stage.“TCS, India’s biggest IT services company, qualified in the third round too. TCS lost. COEMPT — a company with a spectacular track record of failure — won,” Rahul Gandhi alleged.The post immediately intensified political pressure on both CBSE and the Union education ministry, particularly because the allegations now directly connect the procurement process with the operational complaints students are currently raising.“And what are CBSE students complaining about today?” Rahul Gandhi asked. “Badly scanned answer sheets. Missing pages. A broken evaluation portal.”What exactly changed in the tenders?The details emerging from the tender documents paint a picture of significant modifications between the earlier failed rounds and the final successful bid process.One of the most debated changes relates to scanning resolution quality.Earlier tender conditions reportedly required answer sheets to be scanned at a minimum resolution of 300 DPI or higher. In the final August tender, this was relaxed to “at least 200 DPI, provided the content remains clearly legible.”That detail has acquired fresh significance because poor scan quality is now one of the biggest complaints being raised by students seeking access to scanned answer sheets.Several students have alleged that portions of their answers appeared blurred, unclear or incomplete during re-evaluation.Teachers who participated in the digital evaluation process had also privately raised similar concerns earlier.As previously reported, evaluators claimed they frequently encountered blurry scans, disappearing pages, incomplete supplementary sheets and server instability while checking Class 12 answer books digitally.Another major change involved scanning infrastructure requirements.The February and May tenders reportedly mandated “automated or robotic high-speed scanning infrastructure” and specified that answer books should be scanned without cutting the spine of the documents.The August tender removed the robotic scanning requirement altogether.Similarly, the mandatory Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) certification — an internationally recognised software process maturity standard — was reportedly reduced from Level 5 to Level 3.This effectively widened the pool of companies eligible to participate.Penalty structures also underwent dramatic changes.Earlier tender drafts reportedly imposed extremely severe penalties for operational mistakes, including fines of Rs 20,000 per incorrectly scanned copy and Rs 50,000 for unscanned booklets.By the August tender, the penalty system had shifted away from per-copy errors and focused more broadly on operational deadlines.“Teachers had warned the Board”The controversy has also revived concerns over whether CBSE rushed the OSM rollout despite internal warnings from evaluators and schools.Rahul Gandhi claimed teachers involved in trial runs had cautioned the Board that the system required significantly more preparation before nationwide implementation.“Teachers had warned CBSE that the OSM system needed at least a year or two for further preparation before nationwide implementation, yet it was rushed through,” he wrote.That claim mirrors concerns repeatedly voiced by evaluators over the past few weeks.Several teachers involved in the digital checking process had earlier said training lasted barely a week and that many examiners struggled to adapt to prolonged screen-based evaluation under tight timelines.One Delhi-based evaluator had earlier said: “Technology is not the problem. Poor preparation is.”Another teacher described the transition as “rushed from the beginning”.“You cannot suddenly shift lakhs of answer sheets into a fully digital environment without years of calibration and testing,” the evaluator had said.CBSE says due process was followedCBSE officials have firmly denied allegations that tender conditions were diluted to favour any specific company.According to officials quoted in the reports, the earlier tenders failed because of operational and procedural limitations within the original Request for Proposal (RFP) structure.A senior Board official reportedly stated that the changes introduced in the third round were intended to make the process “more practical” and ensure successful participation.“This should not be viewed as a rushed undertaking, but rather as rectifying shortcomings of previous rounds in order to achieve superior results,” the official said.CBSE has also defended the procurement process by stating that the company was selected under government procurement norms and had not been blacklisted by any government agency.“We adhered to government guidelines and regulations while selecting the company through the tender process,” a Board official said.The Board has further stated that no payment has yet been released to the vendor and that all operational issues, penalties and complaints will be reviewed after completion of the re-evaluation process and supplementary examinations.“Due process is not accountability”Rahul Gandhi, however, rejected CBSE’s explanation, arguing that procedural compliance alone does not answer the larger questions being raised.“Pradhan ji and CBSE say ‘due process was followed.’ That is not an answer, that is not accountability,” he wrote.“The question is whether the contract was honestly awarded to the best company which could do the job correctly.”The Congress leader also renewed his demand for an independent judicial investigation into the entire matter.“I have, from day one, demanded an independent judicial probe. Expand it from CBSE to every contract awarded to COEMPT. Our youth deserve the truth,” he wrote.The political escalation comes only a day after Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan publicly acknowledged the seriousness of the controversy and took responsibility for the inconvenience caused to students.“I myself take responsibility on behalf of the government for any inconvenience,” Pradhan had said while urging political parties not to increase students’ stress.But with fresh questions now emerging around the tendering process itself, the controversy appears far from over.Because the debate is no longer only about blurred answer sheets or technical glitches.It is increasingly about whether India’s largest school examination reform was implemented before the system — or the country — was truly ready for it.
