The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has awarded a ₹25.75 per copy on-screen marking (OSM) contract to Hyderabad-based Coempt Edu Teck, just 66 days before the full-fledged rollout of OSM. The contract was awarded under a quality-and-cost based tender process, where Coempt emerged as the lowest financial bidder.
However, the timeline has raised questions about the pace of the rollout. CBSE failed to secure a qualified vendor in two earlier tender rounds before tweaking technical conditions in an August 2025 RFP.
Coempt quoted ₹25.75 per copy inclusive of taxes, while Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) quoted around ₹65 per copy after taxes for certain categories. Both companies held Capability Maturity Model Integration Level 5 certification at the time of the award.
Approximately 20 cases of answer-sheet mix-ups have surfaced, but officials suggest such errors are possible in manual systems as well given the scale of the process. The board is examining how the mismatches occurred and ways to make the system 'absolutely glitch-free.'
Contractual provisions will apply after completion of the verification process, with penalties ranging from ₹4,000 to ₹15,000 per copy for wrongly scanned or mismatched answer books.
Officials have defended the selection of Coempt amid allegations over the company's previous work in Telangana, stating that litigation related to the company's post-examination management work in the state had been examined by courts and 'nothing unusual' had been found.
Scanned copies of answer scripts will be made available to students through DigiLocker from next year.
