Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday accepted responsibility for discrepancies linked to the Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) On-Screen Marking (OSM) evaluation system and assured students that strict action would be taken against those found guilty of irregularities.

Speaking after chairing a high-level meeting with CBSE officials at the Board’s headquarters in New Delhi, Pradhan said the government was committed to resolving all concerns related to Class 12 evaluation and re-evaluation processes.

The minister noted that nearly 17 lakh students appeared for the CBSE Class 12 examinations this year and close to 98 lakh answer sheets were evaluated under the new digital system.

According to him, each answer booklet contained around 40 pages, resulting in almost 40 crore scanned pages being processed.

Pradhan described the On-Screen Marking system as a globally accepted and student-centric evaluation model aimed at improving transparency and efficiency.

However, he admitted that the first-time rollout had exposed certain discrepancies.

“This was the first time CBSE used the OSM system and some discrepancies have come to light. I take responsibility for this and assure you that a solution will be found. We will not leave any student’s query unaddressed,” he said.

To address the technical concerns, the minister said experts from IIT Kanpur and IIT Madras had been brought in to assist CBSE’s technical team in reviewing the software and fixing issues.

Pradhan also announced that payment gateways of four public sector banks SBI, Indian Bank, Bank of Baroda and Canara Bank, had been integrated into the CBSE portal after consultations with the Finance Ministry.

The move is aimed at making the re-evaluation and verification payment process smoother for students.

“We take responsibility for any issues students face and apologise for them. Anyone found intentionally responsible for these discrepancies, irrespective of their position within or outside CBSE, will not be spared,” the minister said.

The remarks came amid criticism from Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who alleged ‘massive tampering’ in CBSE results.

Responding to the allegations, Pradhan said the procurement process for the system followed government norms and reiterated that action would be taken if irregularities were proven.

He also urged political parties not to politicise the issue, stressing that reducing stress among students should remain the priority.

Meanwhile, CBSE clarified that the actual evaluation portal used for the OSM process had not been compromised.

The Board said the URL circulating on social media was only a testing site containing sample data and had no connection to the live evaluation system.