After IITs, PSU banks also roped in for smooth CBSE re-evaluation process

UNion breeding government minister Dharmendra Pradhan on lord's day directed teams of technological experts from native american Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and IIT Kanpur, along with public sector undertaking (PSU) banks to assist the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in resolving glitches, including payments in its post-result services portal.Pradhan spoke to Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman following students’ complaints of payment failures and technical issues. The education ministry in a statement on Sunday said four public sector banks — State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank and Indian Bank — will help CBSE “put in place robust payment protocols to ensure timely payments, address payment glitches, and automatic refunds for excess payments”.CBSE conducted Class 12 board examinations from February 17 to April 10 and announced the results on May 13 – which showed the board’s overall Class 12 pass percentage fell 3.19 percentage points to 85.20%, under the board’s new digital evaluation system called on-screen marking (OSM). The average is down from 88.39% last year, marking the lowest since 2019, when the pass percentage stood at 83.40%.Students alleged OSM cost them foreign university admissions, scholarships and engineering opportunities, while repeated portal failures disrupted their preparation for the ongoing Common University Entrance Test-Undergraduate (CUET-UG) 2026 from May 11 to May 31.The ministry said that IIT experts would “implement focused technological improvements”, specifically examining “portal stability, server performance, login authentication, payment gateways and overall IT infrastructure robustness”.Also Read:IIT Kanpur, Madras teams to assist CBSE for ‘glitch-free’ re-evaluation processThe intervention follows days after complaints from students who told HT they were forced to stay awake till midnight or wake before dawn to access the re-evaluation portal when traffic was lower, only to encounter crashes, fluctuating payment amounts, blurred answer-sheet copies and long delays.For Sarvagya Singh of Jharkhand’s Bokaro, the consequences are potentially life-changing. The DPS Bokaro student scored 89.7%, well below the 93% he expected, including 71% in mathematics, a score he insists is impossible.“The final tally makes absolutely no sense. My absolute bare minimum should never have dropped below 85%,” he said.Singh said he paid ₹500 for scanned copies of five answer books but had still not received them. The result threatens to cost him admission to the University of Hong Kong (HKU), which had offered him an 80% scholarship, conditional on scoring 85% in mathematics.“You do not get accepted there if you are mediocre. I intentionally skipped JEE because I was preparing for HKU. Because of this evaluation, my scholarship dream has been flushed down the drain and an entire year of my life may be wasted,” he said.Calling the re-evaluation portal “the most unstable web application” he had ever used, Singh added: “Imagine getting the most disastrous result of your life and the website keeps collapsing in front of you. It was too many things to handle at once.”Devesh Agarwal of Uttarakhand’s Haldwani, who expected 94% but scored 85%, said the answer sheets he received after paying ₹600 “looked as if someone had clicked them from a phone in a hurry”.“Many pages were blurred and I’ve already found more than 15 discrepancies across four answer sheets,” he said.Agarwal said he had planned to apply to two foreign colleges requiring 90% and above, but now fears he may lose both opportunities.“You feel paranoid when colleges you’ve dreamed of suddenly seem out of reach because of someone else’s fault,” he said, adding that it took more than 25 attempts to register on May 19 and that his payment remained stuck for 12 hours.“CBSE never informed us that answer sheets would come from a Gmail address. I found them sitting in my spam folder.”Sarthak Sidhant of Ranchi said he missed the 75% eligibility threshold for JoSAA counselling despite expecting 87-88%. “My college choices are severely limited now. I feel hopeless sometimes,” he said.He paid ₹500 for five answer books but had still not received them by Sunday. He said he first tried to access a CBSE link circulated on May 19, only to find it later removed, before finally succeeding at 6am on May 21. “The payment went through but failed. It reflected only after 12 hours.”Darsh Kumar from Jamshedpur, who scored 76% against an expected 80-85%, said he has still not been able to complete his application.“The portal kept showing absurd fee amounts, sometimes ₹69 and sometimes ₹69,420. It remained inaccessible for most of the time. It triggered deep self-doubt,” he said.A Delhi student who topped her school in Class 10 with 97.4% but scored 93% in Class 12 against an expected 95% said she had still not received scanned copies of six answer books despite paying on May 21.“How can I raise objections when I can’t even see my answer sheets?” she asked.She said she finally applied at 2.45am because the portal kept crashing during the day.“This is happening while many of us are writing CUET. We are checking the website every two hours instead of studying for the entrance examination. This is disturbing our focus.”The principal of a private school in Delhi blamed the OSM system for the problems faced by students.“First CBSE awarded low marks due to improper checking under the new system. Checking started nearly a month after exams because scanning took too long, and evaluators were pressured to check copies in a hurry. Teachers were not trained properly, many pages were missed, and marks were not awarded even for correct answers. Now students seeking re-evaluation are facing technical glitches, payment failures and repeated crashes. CBSE applied this system in a hurry and we are witnessing chaos unleashed by OSM,” the principal said, requesting anonymity,This was the first full-fledged rollout of OSM, under which 98.66 lakh answer books were digitally evaluated while 13,583 copies were checked manually because repeated scanning failed to produce legible images.CBSE officially announced full-scale OSM on May 9, a week before results.After complaints from students against OSM system evaluation, CBSE cut scanned-copy fees from ₹700 to ₹100, verification fees from ₹500 to ₹100, and per-question re-evaluation charges from ₹100 to ₹25. It also announced that money will be refunded if students’ marks increase after the re-evaluation.Applications for obtaining answer copies opened on May 19, with deadlines extended twice, first from May 22 to May 23, and then to May 24, after repeated technical failures.At a press conference on May 17, CBSE officials said digitisation would allow students to receive answer books “within hours” after applying for obtaining the copies, compare them with official marking schemes, flag discrepancies, and have objections reviewed by subject expert committees. They also said re-evaluation itself would be conducted through OSM.On May 23, however, CBSE acknowledged complaints about “difficulties in accessing the portal during peak demand, delays in payment confirmation, blurred or missing pages, and doubts relating to unmarked responses”, saying these reflected “technical capacity challenges and student apprehensions”.On May 24, the board admitted technical issues on May 21-22 had caused incorrect fee deductions. It said excess payments would be refunded automatically and students charged less would be informed separately, while scanned copies would be provided without requiring fresh applications.The scale of concern is reflected in the numbers: CBSE has received 2.94 lakh applications covering over 8.56 lakh answer books, compared with 1.31 lakh applications for 2.82 lakh answer books last year.Pradhan said “student interests remain paramount” and directed CBSE to take immediate corrective steps to ensure a “transparent, efficient and student-friendly system”.