Coempt Eduteck wins Class XII contract

Coempt EduTeck’s contract to handle the Central Board of Secondary Education’s new on-screen marking system for Class XII exams has become a test of more than one vendor. It now sits at the center of questions about how India buys high-stakes exam technology, how much visibility students get into marking systems, and what happens when procurement design and public trust collide. The immediate trigger was a set of allegations, amplified in late May, that CBSE altered tender conditions across successive versions before awarding the contract to the Hyderabad-based company. CBSE rejected those claims on May 27, calling them “erroneous, misleading, and not based on facts,” and said the award followed General Financial Rules. ### Why has this contract drawn so much attention? (uniindia.com) CBSE introduced on-screen marking for Class XII this year, replacing the older model in which examiners marked physical answer books. The system covered roughly 9.8 million to 9.9 million answer books, or nearly one crore scripts, making it one of the most sensitive technology deployments in India’s school-exam system. (uniindia.com) Students’ complaints turned a procurement story into a public controversy. Reports in recent days cited blurred scans, answer-sheet mix-ups and portal-access problems, while CBSE officials later acknowledged vulnerabilities in the service provider’s portal and said corrective action was under way. ### What, specifically, are critics alleging about the tender? Business Standard reported that a Class XII student who reviewed tender documents alleged that multiple revisions to the request-for-proposal removed hurdles that might otherwise have blocked Coempt from qualifying. (news.careers360.com) Other reports said those changes touched disqualification clauses, financial thresholds and technical requirements. (hindustantimes.com) One of the most cited details is the blacklisting language. Hindustan Times reported that CBSE’s August 28, 2025 tender included blacklisting-related provisions, but a corrigendum issued on September 20, 2025 removed that language before Coempt was awarded the contract on December 5, 2025. ### How did Coempt beat larger rivals? Procurement records reviewed by the Times of India and cited by other outlets show Coempt edged past Tata Consultancy Services in technical evaluation by a narrow margin, scoring 91 out of 100 against TCS’s 89. (business-standard.com) That narrow lead mattered because the contract covered scanning and digital processing of about 9.9 million Class XII answer books under the new system. (hindustantimes.com) The public record available through news reports does not, by itself, prove wrongdoing in that scoring. But it has sharpened attention on how eligibility rules were framed, how technical marks were assigned, and whether the procurement process gave enough assurance for a high-stakes public examination system. That is an inference from the sequence of reported allegations, the board’s denial and the ministry review. (businesstoday.in) ### Did the marking system itself show operational problems? Government sources told PTI, as reported by multiple outlets, that CBSE detected around 20 answer-sheet mix-up cases and that more than 13,000 answer sheets had to be evaluated manually because of scanning-quality issues. Hindustan Times separately reported that CBSE planned to penalize Coempt under contractual penalty clauses. (uniindia.com) CBSE said it had been “closely monitoring” vulnerabilities flagged in the OnMark portal and had deployed cybersecurity professionals from government bodies and IITs to secure the system. News18 reported that the platform was hosted on Amazon Web Services India infrastructure and used for nearly one crore Class XII answer sheets. ### Why has Coempt’s wider record come into the discussion? (timesofindia.indiatimes.com) The Times of India reported on June 3 that Kannur University in Kerala had disqualified Coempt from a similar tender after concluding the company’s “clean track record” declaration was not consistent with a pending criminal proceeding before the Andhra Pradesh High Court. The university committee said the non-disclosure amounted to “suppression of material facts,” according to the report. (hindustantimes.com) Other recent coverage has also noted scrutiny of the company’s earlier identity and past exam-related controversies. Those reports have fed the political and public argument that vendor due diligence in education contracts should be more visible than it usually is. ### What happens next? The Education Ministry has sought a report on the award of the contract and gathered tender files for review, according to reports on June 2. (timesofindia.indiatimes.com) CBSE officials have said penalties, if imposed, will follow the contract’s existing provisions rather than blacklisting language that no longer appears in the final tender framework. (timesnownews.com) CBSE also plans to make scanned Class XII answer scripts available through DigiLocker from next year, according to government-source reporting. That next step will be watched closely by students, exam officials and vendors because it would give candidates more direct visibility into the marking chain after this year’s dispute. (msn.com) (timesnownews.com)