Seventeen-year-old Sarthak Sidhant presented findings to a Parliamentary standing committee detailing alleged irregularities in the CBSE's new online marking system (OSM), particularly focusing on the firm Coempt EduTeck. Sidhant claimed that the CBSE rewrote tender rules to favor Coempt EduTeck, previously known as Globarena Technologies, a company implicated in a major 2019 Telangana Intermediate exam fiasco that resulted in the failure of over 3.8 lakh students and sadly, 23 student suicides, after which the company changed its name. He highlighted that while old tender documents disqualified bidders with a record of poor performance or blacklisting, the revised criteria allegedly only required a "currently blacklisted" status, allowing Coempt EduTeck to secure the CBSE tender despite its history. Sidhant, collaborating with an ethical hacker and journalists, emphasized that his concerns stem from the potential compromise of national data security and student futures, though he clarified he supports the OSM system provided it undergoes more extensive testing and pilot programs before full implementation, and the committee stated they await a response from the CBSE.

Seventeen-year-old Sarthak Sidhant presented findings to a Parliamentary standing committee detailing alleged irregularities in the CBSE's new online marking system (OSM), particularly focusing on the firm Coempt EduTeck. Sidhant claimed that the CBSE rewrote tender rules to favor Coempt EduTeck, previously known as Globarena Technologies, a company implicated in a major 2019 Telangana Intermediate exam fiasco that resulted in the failure of over 3.8 lakh students and sadly, 23 student suicides, after which the company changed its name. He highlighted that while old tender documents disqualified bidders with a record of poor performance or blacklisting, the revised criteria allegedly only required a "currently blacklisted" status, allowing Coempt EduTeck to secure the CBSE tender despite its history. Sidhant, collaborating with an ethical hacker and journalists, emphasized that his concerns stem from the potential compromise of national data security and student futures, though he clarified he supports the OSM system provided it undergoes more extensive testing and pilot programs before full implementation, and the committee stated they await a response from the CBSE.

Seventeen-year-old Sarthak Sidhant presented findings to a Parliamentary standing committee detailing alleged irregularities in the CBSE's new online marking system (OSM), particularly focusing on the firm Coempt EduTeck. Sidhant claimed that the CBSE rewrote tender rules to favor Coempt EduTeck, previously known as Globarena Technologies, a company implicated in a major 2019 Telangana Intermediate exam fiasco that resulted in the failure of over 3.8 lakh students and sadly, 23 student suicides, after which the company changed its name. He highlighted that while old tender documents disqualified bidders with a record of poor performance or blacklisting, the revised criteria allegedly only required a "currently blacklisted" status, allowing Coempt EduTeck to secure the CBSE tender despite its history. Sidhant, collaborating with an ethical hacker and journalists, emphasized that his concerns stem from the potential compromise of national data security and student futures, though he clarified he supports the OSM system provided it undergoes more extensive testing and pilot programs before full implementation, and the committee stated they await a response from the CBSE.

Sarthak Sidhant, 17, a class 12 student who was affected by the CBSE’s new online marking system, presented some of his findings regarding the implementation of the system and its alleged irregularities before the Parliamentary standing committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports on Tuesday.

In his detailed presentation before the panel, he explained how the CBSE rewrote rules to favour Coempt EduTeck, the firm that has been under fire for the discrepancies in the evaluation of the class 12 board results.

The committee members are reviewing the use of OSM for the Class 12 examination and the concerns raised by students.

According to Sidhant, who published his findings in a blog on his website, the CBSE used Coempt Edu Tech’s OSM “at the expense of national data security, and the future of students.”

He said that before their partnership with the CBSE, the company was known as Globarena Technologies.

Globarena Technologies was behind the 2019 Telangana Intermediate exam fiasco.

“Globarena’s Software failed miserably and massively. failing over 3.8 lakh students due to missing marks and other systemic discrepancies. 23 Students committed suicide because of this,” he alleged in the blog.

A committee appointed by the Telangana government found out that Globarena never actually signed a formal agreement with TSBIE for the 4.35 crore project. A report by the committee found that there were “systemic failures, procedural collapse, and glaring negligence”

After the fiasco, the company changed its name to Coempt Edu Teck.

In the old RfP, the CBSE clearly mentioned that the “Bidder is liable to disqualification if it has a record of poor performance, OR BLACKLISTED EARLIER BY THE BOARD, OR HAVE BEEN DEBARRED FROM ANY ASSIGNMENT BY ANY GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION.”

In the new RFP, however, the CBSE allegedly changed the requirement to “currently blacklisted” in the Pre-Qualification Criteria, the blog read.

Despite its history, CBSE reportedly granted the tender of OSM to Coempt Edutech.

Speaking to ANI ahead of the presentation, he said he found many discrepancies.

"There were many discrepancies. I have just compared them. There were at least 15 discrepancies, as per my blog. I would like to highlight three or four of them. Let me give a background about Coempt. It was known as Globarena, and they have a very shady background. 23 students killed themselves because of coempt," he said.

He claimed that clauses relating to poor performance, blacklisting, financial qualification limits, CMMI levels and project eligibility criteria were altered across successive tenders.

"The first discrepancy is that in the old tender, there were three clauses of poor performance, that the service provider would be disqualified if they have poor performance. But in the new RFP, it was totally wiped out," he alleged.

Sidhant also said that his research was a collaboration with ethical hacker Nisarg Adhikari and journalists investigating the issue

he expresed home that the matter would lead to greater transparency in the educational evaluation systems.

He also clarified that he was not opposed to the OSM system and said that he believed that it required more extensive testing before its implementation

"I think OSM is a good change, but there should be wide rollouts first and good demo pilots," he said.

After his presentation, Congress MP Digvijaya Singh, who is chairing the panel,said that the committee will wait for a response from the CBSE on the same matter.

"He (Sarthak Sidhant, one of the students affected by the CBSE’s On-Screen Marking (OSM) system) has made his presentation. It is for the committee to decide (on the replies given by the CBSE)," the Congress leader told ANI.

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