CBSE OSM portal row: TCS lost to Coempt in bidding process for qualified vendor, says report
CBSE OSM row: The teachers who participated in the field exercise before the rollout said that the system needed at least a year or two of further preparation.
- May 29, 2026,
- Updated May 29, 2026 4:15 PM IST
CBSE OSM portal row: Coempt EduTeck, the company that is at the centre of the on-screen marking system (OSM) portal row for Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Class 12 board examinations won the vendor tender over TCS, said a report. This was also the third tender that CBSE had floated – the first round did not receive any bids, and there were no eligible bidders in the second.
According to a report in Hindustan Times, the third tender was issued in August 2025, merely six months before the system was to be deployed for the Class 12 board examinations. A senior board official said that the plan was to roll out the OSM system in 2026, but the first two attempts to secure a vendor had failed. Hence, several shortcomings and operational issues in the initial Request for Proposal (RFP) documents were revalued and modified to make the process more practical and to ensure successful participation.
MUST READ | CBSE re-evaluation opens today: 11 lakh answer scripts requested amid OSM controversy
The teachers who participated in the field exercise before the rollout said that the system needed at least a year or two of further preparation.
According to the report, both TCS and Coempt cleared the technical round in the third tender but the latter emerged as the successful bidder based on the financial evaluation as the lowest financial bidder.
The report added that several technical requirements were substantially diluted between the failed tenders and the RFP documents, said the report. The minimum scanning resolution was also reduced from “300 DPI and above” to “minimum 200 DPI with clearly readable content”. TCS had urged CBSE to lower the DPI threshold to 150. While CBSE did not agree to TCS' request, it did relax the standard.
Another CBSE official said that they followed the guidelines and selected the company through a tender.
Out of the 9,866,622 answer books that were evaluated this year, 68,018 had to be rescanned because of poor image quality. As many as 13,583 were checked manually after repeated scanning failed to produce legible copies.
CBSE OSM portal row: Coempt EduTeck, the company that is at the centre of the on-screen marking system (OSM) portal row for Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Class 12 board examinations won the vendor tender over TCS, said a report. This was also the third tender that CBSE had floated – the first round did not receive any bids, and there were no eligible bidders in the second.
According to a report in Hindustan Times, the third tender was issued in August 2025, merely six months before the system was to be deployed for the Class 12 board examinations. A senior board official said that the plan was to roll out the OSM system in 2026, but the first two attempts to secure a vendor had failed. Hence, several shortcomings and operational issues in the initial Request for Proposal (RFP) documents were revalued and modified to make the process more practical and to ensure successful participation.
MUST READ | CBSE re-evaluation opens today: 11 lakh answer scripts requested amid OSM controversy
The teachers who participated in the field exercise before the rollout said that the system needed at least a year or two of further preparation.
According to the report, both TCS and Coempt cleared the technical round in the third tender but the latter emerged as the successful bidder based on the financial evaluation as the lowest financial bidder.
The report added that several technical requirements were substantially diluted between the failed tenders and the RFP documents, said the report. The minimum scanning resolution was also reduced from “300 DPI and above” to “minimum 200 DPI with clearly readable content”. TCS had urged CBSE to lower the DPI threshold to 150. While CBSE did not agree to TCS' request, it did relax the standard.
Another CBSE official said that they followed the guidelines and selected the company through a tender.
Out of the 9,866,622 answer books that were evaluated this year, 68,018 had to be rescanned because of poor image quality. As many as 13,583 were checked manually after repeated scanning failed to produce legible copies.