'Pradhan Shamelessly Digging His Heels; Why Is PM Protecting Him?': Congress Leader Jairam Ramesh On CBSE's OSM Row

New Delhi: The political firestorm surrounding the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) intensified on Wednesday as Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Wednesday sharpened his attacks on Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, stating that the minister is "shamelessly" retaining his office while evidence of incompetence keeps coming out.

In an X post, Ramesh cited multiple reports of irregularities in the CBSE evaluation process, alleging that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is "protecting" the Education Minister despite a "string of debacles".

"The CBSE leadership may have been transferred out, but the Mantri Pradhan is shamelessly digging his heels in office even while evidence of his Ministry's incompetence and corruption piles up," he said.

The Congress leader claimed a lack of transparency regarding the board's On-Screen Marking (OSM) system, alleging that CBSE officials struggled to answer questions raised by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education regarding the procurement process.

"We have learnt from media reporting that the CBSE could not answer questions regarding its On Screen Marking (OSM) procurement raised by @digvijaya_28's Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education after it heard from 18-year-old student Sarthak Sidhant, who had first flagged the corruption in the tender via social media. This is a glaring lack of accountability at the highest level of the CBSE and Education Ministry," he said.

Furthermore, he noted that media investigations have revealed that warnings issued during the system's "dry run" which specifically advised delaying the adoption of OSM until technical glitches were resolved, were largely ignored by the board.

"...Investigation into the CBSE's dry run for its OSM system revealed that several participants in the dry run red-flagged the system and requested that the CBSE delay its adoption until the glitches are resolved and training is provided to all evaluators. The CBSE not only failed to heed this wise counsel of delaying OSM adoption, but also failed to resolve many of the specific issues flagged by the participants," he said.

Ramesh's further allged that CBSE repeatedly missed deadlines for re-evaluation and struggled with portal accessibility, resulting in growing frustration among students.

"We already know that the CBSE has consistently failed to meet its own deadline for re-evaluations of student papers. It first postponed the date from May 29th and then failed to meet its own 1st June deadline. When the portal finally opened on June 2nd, several students faced trouble accessing and making payments on it."

With public sentiment souring over the issue, Ramesh claimed that even NDA voters are questioning the minister's tenure, asking, "Why is the Pradhan Mantri insistent on protecting him? Whose patronage has ensured his survival so far?"

His remarks came after the Centre transferred CBSE officials and constituted a one-member inquiry committee to probe issues related to the procurement of services for the board's On-Screen Marking system.

According to an official order, the inquiry will be headed by S Radha Chauhan, Chairperson of the Capacity Building Commission. The committee has been tasked with examining procurement-related matters concerning the OSM system and has been empowered to seek assistance from other government departments as required. It has been directed to submit its report to the Department of Personnel and Training within one month.

The development comes amid growing scrutiny of CBSE's digital evaluation system, with reports of technical glitches in its post-result portal and alleged discrepancies in evaluated answer sheets.

Earlier, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports Chairman Digvijaya Singh also said the panel will examine concerns raised by students regarding the OSM system after hearing representations from students, including class 12 student Sarthak Sidhant.

Meanwhile, CBSE said its re-evaluation portal has already recorded over 28,000 successful submissions by 10 pm on Tuesday. The board added that improvements, including extended session time limits, have been implemented to improve user experience, while teams continue to monitor the system for stability and security. (ANI)

The OSM system, introduced for digital evaluation of CBSE board examination answer sheets, has come under scrutiny following complaints from students and teachers regarding portal glitches, mismatched answer books and issues related to scanned copies.

Teachers who participated in the dry run of the OSM have alleged that the exercise was largely limited to testing server capacity and failed to adequately assess operational challenges that later emerged during the nationwide rollout of the system.

Their claims stand in contrast to CBSE's own description of the pilot exercise, in which the Board said the dry run helped identify shortcomings in the system and led to several modifications before implementation.

(Except for the headline, this article has not been edited by FPJ's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)