The Central Board of Secondary Education issued the screen marking contract to Hyderabad-based Coempt Edu Teck on December 5, 2025 — just 66 days before the board announced the full rollout of OSM on February 9 — with the company emerging as the lowest financial bidder in the quality-cost-based bidding process, officials said on Friday.
The timeline, which was confirmed to HT, puts the contract award at the center of growing questions about the pace of the rollout.
As reported by HT on Friday, CBSE had failed to secure a qualified vendor in two previous rounds of bidding before amending several technical conditions in the RFP in August 2025.
Under the quality-cost selection framework – which allocated 70% weight to technical criteria and 30% to financial bids – Coempt transferred approx. $25.75 per copy including taxes. Tata Consultancy Services, the only other bidder that met the technical specifications, quoted the offer $65 per copy after taxes for certain categories. “TCS rates were much higher at approx $“$65 per copy after taxes for certain categories,” said an official who requested anonymity.
The two companies had achieved Capability Maturity and Integration Model Level 5 certification – the highest level – at the time of the award, officials said.
Officials acknowledged that there were approximately 20 instances of mix-ups in answer sheets, but noted that such errors were possible in manual systems as well given the scale of the operation – approximately 9.8 million answer books. “For a child whose answer sheet is mixed up, there is no adequate explanation. But if speed alone determines errors, more such problems could occur,” one official said, adding that the board was studying how the mismatch occurred and ways to make the system “completely error-free.”
Regarding penalties for reported non-conformities and glitches, officials said that contractual provisions will be applied after the verification process is completed. According to officials, wrongly scanned or mismatched answer books attract A $4000 fine per copy, partially scanned copies $8000 copies and completely unscanned $15000.
Officials also defended the selection of Quimpet amid allegations by opposition leaders, including Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, over the company’s past work in Telangana. An official said lawsuits related to the company’s post-examination management business in the state had been examined by the courts and “nothing unusual” had been found.
Officials said scanned copies of answer scripts will be available to students through DigiLocker from next year.
