NEW DELHI: A day after the CBSE chairman and Secretary were shunted out over the On-Screen Marking (OSM) fiasco, Parliamentary panel head and Congress MP Digvijaya Singh questioned the Union Education Ministry over its decision to change the proposal of using robotic scanners for the OSM project.
In a post on X, the former union minister said that the original Request for Proposal (RFP) for the OSM project included the use of robotic scanners. It was later replaced with ordinary scanners, he said.
“Initially for OSM CBSE had decided to use Robotic Scanner in the RFP document. But later it was changed to an ordinary Scanner. Why? Only Dharmendra Pradhan would know, ” he said.
On Tuesday, a 17-year-old student from Jharkhand, affected by the CBSE's online marking system, appeared before the Parliamentary Committee for Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports, chaired by Digvijaya Singh. The student made a presentation of the anomalies in the tendering process of the CBSE to select vendors for online marking and put forth a set of questions for the board.
In his tweet, Singh further explained the efficacy of the Robotic Scanner. “A robotic scanner combines a 3D or optical scanner with an automated robotic arm (or similar automated mechanism) to capture detailed, hands-free measurements. These systems are widely used in manufacturing for automated quality control, in libraries for bulk archival digitizing, and in reverse engineering.”
Singh sought to know if the proposal was changed to ‘oblige a particular vendor’.“Decide yourself,” he wrote. .
Earlier, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi had demanded an independent judicial probe and an investigation by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) against the firm ‘Coempt Edutech, which was given the contract for OSM project. However, the CBSE said the contract was indeed awarded to Coempt Edutech, but dismissed the allegations against the firm.
