Govt shunts out CBSE chairman, secretary after OSM fiasco

CBSE chairman Rahul Singh and Secretary Himanshu Gupta were on Tuesday shunted out of the national educational board in the wake of alleged irregularities in the digital evaluation system for the class 12 examination process, officials said.  The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) engulfed into a controversy after some class 12 students alleged that the scanned copies of their answer sheets uploaded by the board did not match their handwriting, raising concerns over possible answer-sheet mismatch in the On-Screen Marking (OSM) system. The chairman and secretary of CBSE have been transferred by the government, an official said.
17 yr old student who flagged alleged irregularities in CBSE's OSM tender process appeared before a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Tuesday. Sarthak Sidhant presented findings from his investigation into CBSE's OSM contracts, alleging multiple changes in tender conditions that benefited a private vendor The probe will examine the process followed in awarding and managing the OSM contract. 
An inquiry committee has been set up to investigate the Board's procurement of On-Screen Marking (OSM) services. S. Radha Chauhan, to inquire into matters relating to the OSM system by the CBSE. Chauhan is currently chairperson of the Capacity Building Commission (CBC). An office memorandum issued by the Cabinet Secretariat on Tuesday said that the committee would submit its report to the Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT) within a month. “The chairperson of the committee is empowered to obtain the assistance of officers from other offices, as required. Secretarial assistance to the committee will be provided by CBC,” the memorandum said.
Sidhant alleged on his blog that the board modified eligibility and technical requirements across three tender rounds, all of which benefited Coempt EduTeck. "There were at least 15 discrepancies, as per my blog. I would like to highlight three or four of them. Let me give a background about Coempt. It was known as Globarena, and they have a very shady background. 23 students killed themselves because of coempt," he told a news agency.