The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has reported significant issues during the first-time implementation of its on-screen marking (OSM) system for board examinations.

According to government sources, around 20 cases of answer-sheet mix-ups were detected after students accessed scanned copies of their evaluated papers and found discrepancies, including instances where the uploaded answer sheets did not belong to them.

Students such as Vedant and Sanjana highlighted these issues on social media, prompting corrective action by the board, which later provided the correct answer sheets.The scale of the digitisation effort was massive, with nearly 98 lakh answer sheets covering around 40 crore pages scanned under the system.Out of these, approximately 68,000 answer sheets were initially flagged for poor scanning quality and had to be rescanned.

Despite this, over 13,000 copies still remained illegible and required manual evaluation, indicating persistent technical and quality challenges in the rollout of the digital assessment system.

Due to these issues, CBSE also postponed the opening of its Class 12 post-result verification and re-evaluation portal, citing the need to strengthen the platform for smoother access.Students and parents reported additional difficulties, including server overload, payment gateway failures, and incorrect fee displays.

CBSE officials defended the initiative, stating that technology-based evaluation enhances transparency and future integration with DigiLocker will further streamline access to answer sheets and mark sheets.However, the rollout has drawn scrutiny, including political criticism and calls for independent investigation into the contracting process.Authorities maintain that corrective measures are being implemented to ensure an error-free and transparent evaluation system going forward.