Seventeen-year-old Class 12 student from Ranchi, Sarthak Sidhant appeared before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports on Tuesday at the Parliament House Annexe to present his findings on alleged irregularities in CBSE’s On-Screen Marking (OSM) tender process.
He had been in the headlines after exposing the irregularities of the tender by CBSE in his blog. The Parliamentary panel comprising 21 Lok Sabha members and 10 Rajya Sabha members chaired by Congress MP Digvijay Singh is examining concerns around CBSE’s OSM system for Class 12 examinations. The committee has summoned officials from the Ministry of Education and CBSE to respond to allegations and discuss the tender procurement process. The Tuesday meeting format followed standard parliamentary procedure: Sidhant was given time to present his 12-page analysis, followed by questioning from committee members, with CBSE officials present to respond to the allegations.
During his presentation, the JVM Shyamali current batch passout, Sidhant presented findings detailing alleged irregularities in the tendering process for the OSM system, alongside broader concerns regarding transparency and assessment quality. He also submitted documentary evidence from the Central Public Procurement Portal, including comparative analyses of the original and revised tender documents. He told the committee that during the analysis he had figured out several discrepancies which he has already mentioned in his blog. “There were many discrepancies. I have just compared them. There were at least 15 discrepancies. I would like to highlight three or four of them,” he told the media before entering the committee room. Before the panel he pointed out several critical changes in the Request for Proposal (RFP) that he claims favoured Hyderabad-based Coempt EduTeck over industry giant TCS and others. “The first discrepancy is that in the old tender, there were three clauses of poor performance, that the service provider would be disqualified if they have poor performance.
But in the new RFP, it was totally wiped out,” he said in his presentation. He also mentioned that there was a clause called ‘blacklisted earlier’ whereas in the new RFP, it was changed to ‘blacklisted currently’. “Why would the board want a service provider which was blacklisted at any point in time?” Sidhant asked. He also pointed to modifications in eligibility criteria, financial qualifications, Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) certification levels and project eligibility requirements, presenting line-by-line comparisons of the original and revised tender documents. Providing a context on the company’s history he said that Coempt was earlier known as Globarena, and they have a very shady background. “23 students killed themselves because of Coempt… It shows a pattern that the industry giant TCS was not preferred, but Coempt was preferred.” he posted on social media. Despite his criticisms, Sidhant clarified in his presentation that he was not opposed to the idea of digital evaluation.
