New Delhi: Around 20 cases of answer-sheet mix-up were detected in CBSE's first-time on-screen marking (OSM) process this year, while nearly 13,000 answer sheets had to be evaluated manually, government sources said on Friday.
The students flagged the mix-up cases after accessing scanned copies uploaded on the portal and finding the answer sheets did not belong to them.
"There was a case of Vedant. Vedant got the answer sheet, and to his horror, he discovered that this was not his answer sheet. There was a mix-up in scanning... There was a girl called Sanjana too," the sources said.
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A class 12 student, Vedant, earlier went viral when he alleged that the Physics answer sheet uploaded by the CBSE under the revaluation process was not his. Several other students, including Sanjana, also took to social media with similar claims.
CBSE later reached out to them and shared their correct answer sheets. The board said that it had taken up on "top priority" the cases related to alleged mismatched answer sheets and other concerns faced by students in the revaluation process.
"In some cases, there was a mix-up in scanning. Such cases are around 20. Students pointed it out after accessing their answer sheets," the sources said.
More than 98 lakh answer sheets, amounting to nearly 40 crore sheets, were scanned under the OSM system, according to them.
"Out of these 98 lakh answer sheets, around 68,000 were found to have quality issues during scanning and were rescanned. Eventually, a little over 13,000 copies still did not attain the required legible quality even after rescanning," the sources said.
Experts from IIT Madras and IIT Kanpur, along with Digital Infrastructure Corporation of India (DICI), are examining the system and strengthening the portal and payment gateway integration, they said.
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"The teams are examining the code and the system to make it seamless and glitch-free," the sources added.
The officials defended the introduction of OSM, saying technology-driven evaluation improves transparency and allows answer sheets to be digitally shared with students.
"Technology is the future. Next year onwards, answer sheets will also be available in DigiLocker along with mark sheets," they said.
"Next year onwards, all the answer sheets also would be sent simultaneously to the DigiLocker. Technology gives you a certain kind of transparency, which otherwise is not possible," they said.
"Whenever you do something for the first time, there are challenges," the sources said.
According to them, Coempt and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) qualified technically in the final round of bidding, with Coempt emerging as the lowest bidder after quoting around Rs 24.75 per answer booklet compared to TCS' approximately Rs 65.
"When the tender was floated for the third time, two companies -- Coempt and TCS -- qualified technically. When the financial bids were opened, Coempt had quoted approximately Rs 24.75 per answer booklet inclusive of taxes, while TCS had quoted around Rs 65-66 without taxes," the sources said.
Coempt has been under attack by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who alleged that the company was already mired in controversy under its old name, Globarena.
The leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha has demanded an independent judicial probe, as well as an SIT, to unearth the truth behind the "entire scam", and asked why a firm that had a murky past in Telangana handed the contract to the board.
