Between the first two tenders issued by the Central Board of Secondary Education for Screen Marking (OSM), and the work order for the third, which was issued to the winning bidder Coempt Edu Teck, the estimated contract value increased by $10 Crores for the same size of work, from $28 Crores $A review of the three documents shows Rs 38.46 crore.
Based on the actual price of the actual number of scanned answer sheets, the value of the work is arrived at $25.39 crore, i.e. approximately 66% of the value mentioned in the work order, even though the volume of work is only 42% of what is mentioned in the two tenders as well as the work order.
The mismatch in numbers only serves to highlight the ambiguity of the process that has dominated news headlines, threatened the careers of students, and led to the transfer of two senior CBSE officials.
Hizb ut-Tahrir’s reports presented a picture of an operation that was rushed without adequate preparation and training – with inevitable tragic consequences.
Conditions were relaxed before the third tender
In the first tender, issued in February 2025, and the second, issued in August 2025, the volume of answer texts to be scanned and digitally evaluated was 23.8 million. This number appears to be based on an initial expectation that OSM would be used for both classes 10 and 12. It was eventually implemented for Class 12 only.
As HT reported on May 29, the first tender did not attract any bids, and none of the four bidders for the second were able to pass the technical evaluation round. This report also noted that qualification requirements had been relaxed between the second and third tender, including in the area of critical surveying (the first two tenders were mandated for robotic surveying, while the third tender was not). The resolution has also been reduced from 300 dpi to 200 dpi.
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Hyderabad-based Coempt Edu Teck Pvt Ltd was awarded the contract after beating Mumbai-based Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in the technical evaluation by two scores and submitting a financial bid that was nearly 60% lower than TCS’s, HT reported on June 2. According to the Bill of Quantities (BoQ) documentation, Coempt quoted prices ranging between $24.75 L $25.74 per answer booklet depending on the volume of answer books to be processed, while TCS prices range between $53 f $65 per booklet across the same size categories.
“It is not mandatory to include the estimated cost value in the tender document but it is desirable to enable bidders to take an informed decision. The entity inviting the tender must justify the contract value if it is incremental for the same quantity or same type of work,” said a senior official from EdCIL (India) Limited, a Mini Ratna Category 1 Central Public Sector Undertaking of the Union Education Ministry.
What was the value of the final contract?
HT also reported on May 30 that the OSM contract was awarded to Coempt Edu Teck on December 5, just 74 days before the first board exams began on February 17.
The contract value, according to the work order accessed by HT, was $38.46 crore “for digital evaluation of answer books for Class 10 and 12 examinations conducted by the board.”
This work order certainly did not mention sizes, but since it was for both Classes 10 and 12, it is unlikely that it would have changed from the first two tenders.
CBSE did not respond to HT’s queries seeking the logic behind the increase by over $10 crore contract value between the first two tenders and the work order for the third.
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However, a senior board official said the work order was issued on the basis of an estimate of 15 million written responses. The math doesn’t work until then: $28 Crores for 23.8 million answer sheets to be reached $17.64 crores for 15 lakhs, no $38.46 Crores.
“There will always be differences on both sides, plus or minus between the estimates and the actual values. The bill is paid on physical copies. Prices for 10 million to 15 million copies are the same. The actual payment to Coempt will be made on the basis of physical copies scanned and uploaded on the OSM portal for evaluation,” the official, who requested anonymity, added.
On May 17, CBSE reported that a total of 98,66,222 (9.86 million) answer books of Class 12 had been scanned. A total of 68,018 answer books were re-scanned due to poor scanning quality, and 13,583 answer books had persistent poor quality and were therefore manually flagged. The work order document dated December 5, 2025 specifies the processing fees for each answer book associated with the various volume panels. The price quoted is $25.74 per answer booklet for quantities up to 15 million answer booklets, while the rate drops to $24.75 per answer book for quantities of 25 million and above.
An average of 9,866,222 answer books were calculated $25.74 per answer book, which is the actual payment figure $25.39 Crores. This is what CoEmpt is entitled to. CBSE has not made any payment to Coempt yet and the payment will be made after completion of all examination related formalities including declaration of results based on re-evaluated answer copies of Class 12 batch 2025-26.
CBSE is currently accepting objections to questions on various subjects as part of the re-evaluation process.
Meanwhile, a single-member committee has been appointed by the Union government to examine the procurement of OSM system by CBSE.
