Rahul Gandhi Slams CBSE Over Re-evaluation Glitches, Fees
Rahul questioned the charges levied for obtaining scanned copies of answer sheets, re-totalling, and re-evaluation, alleging that students are being made to pay for errors arising from the board's evaluation process
New Delhi: Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, on Monday launched a sharp attack on the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) over its post-result fee structure.
The Congress leader questioned the charges levied for obtaining scanned copies of answer sheets, re-totalling, and re-evaluation, alleging that students are being made to pay for errors arising from the board's evaluation process.
In a post on X, Gandhi criticised CBSE for charging students to rectify mistakes that he claimed stem from flaws in the digital scanning system.
“Beware of pickpockets — today they're sitting inside CBSE. If marks come out wrong due to CBSE's mistake, what do you get? A bill: Digital scan copy: ₹100/subject, Re-totalling: ₹100/paper, Re-evaluation: ₹25/question,” he wrote.
He claimed that a student may have to spend up to ₹2,000 to get an answer sheet properly checked and questioned the amount of revenue generated through such applications.
“Think about it: when 4 lakh kids have filed such applications, how much is CBSE raking in. When scanning was done with a phone, wrong marking is a given. And the child is footing the bill to get it fixed,” Gandhi said.
He further alleged that the burden of correcting evaluation errors falls unfairly on students.
“The mistake is CBSE's. The punishment is the child's. The earnings are the government's. When education is turned from a service into a business, mistakes aren't corrected. They're multiplied. And our children are paying the steepest price for it — with their time, their self-confidence, and their future,” he added.
Gandhi also reiterated his claim that incorrect marking becomes inevitable when answer sheets are scanned using mobile phones and that students are forced to bear the cost of rectification.
His remarks come amid an ongoing controversy surrounding CBSE's On-Screen Marking (OSM) evaluation process.
On Sunday, CBSE said it had closely monitored vulnerabilities identified in the OnMark portal operated by its service provider and had deployed cybersecurity experts to strengthen the system.
In a post on X, the board said a team of cybersecurity professionals from various government agencies and the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) had been working over the past few days to secure the platform.
CBSE stated that the identified vulnerabilities had been contained and that efforts were underway to ensure no other exploitable weaknesses remained.
The board also thanked alert citizens and ethical hackers who highlighted potential security concerns and said it had directly engaged with some of them.