NEW DELHI: Congress MP Digvijaya Singh has raised fresh questions over the Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) On-Screen Marking (OSM) project, asking Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan why the board removed the requirement for robotic scanners from its tender process before the system was rolled out nationwide for Class 12 examinations.Singh, who currently serves as Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, has been actively examining issues surrounding CBSE’s transition to the fully digital evaluation system after complaints relating to scanned answer sheets, missing pages and evaluation discrepancies surfaced following the declaration of Class 12 results.In a post on X, the Rajya Sabha MP referred to changes made in CBSE’s Request for Proposal (RFP) documents and questioned why a key technical requirement was altered during the procurement process.“Initially for OSM CBSE had decided to use Robotic Scanner in RFP (Request for Proposal) document. But later it was changed to ordinary Scanner. Why? Only @dpradhanbjp would know,” Singh wrote.He further explained the role of robotic scanners, describing them as automated systems that combine optical or 3D scanning technology with robotic mechanisms to perform large-scale, hands-free digitisation and quality-control tasks. Such systems are commonly used in manufacturing environments, archival digitisation projects and reverse-engineering applications where consistency and accuracy are critical.The Congress leader then directly linked the change in specifications to questions surrounding the vendor selection process.“Then why this was changed? To oblige a particular Vendor? Decide yourself,” Singh wrote.The issue has gained attention because CBSE’s final tender conditions differed from earlier versions. According to tender documents that have since entered the public domain, the board’s initial tenders required answer books to be scanned using automated or robotic high-speed scanning infrastructure without cutting the spine of answer books. In the final tender, however, the explicit requirement for robotic scanners was removed.The question assumes significance as scanning quality has emerged as one of the major concerns raised by students seeking access to scanned copies of their evaluated answer books under the OSM system.The developments come amid wider scrutiny of the OSM rollout. The Centre has already ordered an inquiry into the procurement process related to the platform, while CBSE recently underwent a leadership change with the appointment of a new chairperson. Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has not publicly responded to Singh’s latest questions regarding the removal of the robotic scanner requirement from the OSM tender conditions.
