CBSE's digital evaluation rollout faces scrutiny over answer sheet and portal issues

CBSE's first nationwide use of digital evaluation has come under scrutiny after officials confirmed that a small number of students were mistakenly shown answer sheets belonging to other candidates during the post-result review process.

According to government sources, around 20 answer script mismatch cases were detected during the implementation of the Central Board of Secondary Education's On-Screen Marking (OSM) system for the 2026 board examinations.

The discrepancies were identified when students accessed scanned copies of their answer books while applying for re-evaluation and verification.

"There are around 20 cases where answer sheets got mixed up during the scanning process. Students identified the problem after accessing the uploaded copies," a senior official said.

The issue gained public attention after Class 12 student Vedant Shrivastava claimed on social media that the Physics answer script made available to him was not his own. Another student, Sanjana, also reported receiving an incorrect answer sheet.

"When Vedant checked the uploaded copy, he realized it belonged to someone else. There was another student, Sanjana, who also reported a similar issue," the official said.

CBSE subsequently provided the correct answer sheets to affected candidates and said such complaints are being addressed on a priority basis.

The mismatches surfaced amid the board's large-scale shift to digital evaluation. For the 2026 examination cycle, nearly 98 lakh answer books, accounting for about 40 crore pages, were digitized and processed through the OSM platform.

Officials said quality checks flagged roughly 68,000 answer books for poor scan quality, requiring them to be scanned again. Even after rescanning, more than 13,000 answer sheets failed to meet readability standards and were moved to the manual evaluation process.

"Even after rescanning, a little over 13,000 answer sheets could not achieve the required level of readability," sources said.

The OSM system was introduced to enable examiners to evaluate scanned answer books remotely, reducing dependence on physical handling and aiming to speed up the assessment process.

At the same time, CBSE has been dealing with technical issues affecting its re-evaluation portal. Government sources said unauthorized attempts targeted the payment system, resulting in unusual fee amounts being displayed for some users.

"There were some unauthorized attacks on the portal. The payment gateway was with respect to HDFC... about 50-odd children had got in," a source said.

The issue reportedly caused payment figures to fluctuate dramatically, with some candidates seeing amounts ranging from ₹1 to nearly ₹68,000.

"I think out of fun or out of mala fide intention, I think that one rupee was shown and then ₹67,000 to 68,000. So, there were about 50 children in whose case the amount had changed," the source said.

To strengthen the system, experts from IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, and the Digital Infrastructure Corporation of India have been asked to review the platform and payment gateway integration.

"The teams are examining the code and the system to make it seamless and glitch-free," the person added.

Officials also confirmed that Hyderabad-based Coempt Edu Teck received the OSM contract in December 2025 after emerging as the lowest bidder among technically qualified companies.

"In the third round during the financial bid, COEMPT had quoted ₹24.75 including taxes for an answer sheet, while TCS had quoted around ₹65 including taxes. The difference was huge. We need to award it to the lowest bidder only, and hence COEMPT was selected," an official said.

While defending the digital transition, CBSE acknowledged the impact of the errors on affected students and said corrective measures are underway.

"For a child whose answer sheet was mixed up, no explanation is enough. But if speed alone determined mistakes, more of such issues could have happened," an official said.

The board is also planning to make scanned answer scripts available through DigiLocker from next year as part of efforts to improve transparency and accessibility in post-result services.