Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan takes responsibility for CBSE OSM discrepancies, assures strict action against guilty

New Delhi [India], May 28 (ANI): Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday took responsibility for discrepancies related to the CBSE's On-Screen Marking (OSM) evaluation process and assured strict action against anyone found intentionally responsible for irregularities affecting students.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan chaired a meeting with CBSE officials at the CBSE headquarters to address technical and payment-related issues faced by students during the re-evaluation and verification processes.

Speaking after the meeting, Pradhan said the Board was working to address all concerns raised by students regarding evaluation and re-evaluation for Class 12 examinations.
"Today, we've gathered as the CBSE 12th class re-evaluation is about to begin soon. Seventeen lakh students appeared for the examination, and we have ninety-eight lakh answer sheets. Each answer sheet has forty pages. So, nearly forty crore pages have been scanned," Pradhan said.
The Minister said this was the first time CBSE had used the OSM evaluation process, which he described as a "student-centric" and globally accepted system aimed at improving transparency.

"This was the first time CBSE used it, and some discrepancies have come to light. I take responsibility for this and assure you that a solution will be found. We are working on it. We will not leave any student's query unaddressed," he said.
Pradhan added that experts from IIT Kanpur and IIT Madras had been roped in to assist the CBSE's technical team in reviewing the software and resolving issues.
He also said that, following discussions with the Finance Ministry, payment gateways of four public sector banks, SBI, Indian Bank, Bank of Baroda and Canara Bank, had been integrated with the CBSE portal to make the system more seamless for students.
"We take responsibility for any issues students face and apologize for them. I assure you that anyone found intentionally responsible for these discrepancies, regardless of their position within or outside CBSE, will not be spared," Pradhan said.
The Minister urged political parties to avoid politicising the issue and stressed that reducing stress among students should remain the priority.
Responding to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's allegations of "massive tampering" in CBSE results, Pradhan said, "CBSE has already responded to this responsibly. The procurement was done following the Government of India's policies. I repeat, if any irregularities are found, no one will be spared. However, as for Rahul Gandhi, he seems to be in a different mental state due to repeated election losses. He has opposed Rafale, EVMs, and Digital India. He seems to be against India's scientific progress. As I've taken responsibility on behalf of the government for these discrepancies, I would request everyone to refrain from playing politics at this time. Our collective goal should be to ensure that the mental stress of the students doesn't increase."
Meanwhile, CBSE reiterated that the actual evaluation portal used for OSM had not been compromised and clarified that the URL circulating on social media was only a testing site with sample data and not linked to the live evaluation system. (ANI)