'Why Doesn't CBSE Make Him Adviser?' Panel After Student's Presentation

Sarthak Sidhant, a Class 12 student who gave a presentation before a parliamentary panel on education about his findings on the row over the CBSE's on-screen marking (OSM) system, has received big praise from the members of the panel.

According to sources, the members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education were so impressed that one of them asked why didn't the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) already appoint him an adviser?

When the session began, the CBSE officials present there were unaware that Sidhant would appear before the committee. He came accompanied by his parents and brother. He had claimed he found alleged irregularities in the CBSE giving a contract to Coempt Edu Teck Pvt Ltd for handling the scanning and digital evaluation of answer sheets.

Sidhant systematically presented his arguments to the members, highlighting various discrepancies from the financial criteria stipulated in Coempt's balance sheet, such as the requirement for a net worth of Rs 50 crore, and the failure to disclose its "Blacklisted Earlier" status to the fact that the company's previous avatar, Globarena, had worked under the Telangana Education Board.

Some panel members also indicated to the CBSE officials that given the depth of research the young student had conducted on this issue, they ought to consider appointing him as an advisor, sources said.

The CBSE is scheduled to give its responses to the questions raised by Sidhant on the tender process in the committee's next meeting. Sources said the members demanded that the CBSE identify who is responsible for the events that transpired and what disciplinary action has been taken against them, emphasising that accountability must be ensured following such incidents.

Sidhant alleged that a comparison of multiple CBSE tender documents revealed several discrepancies that, according to him, appeared to favour a particular service provider.

"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," he told news agency ANI.

"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, referring to the request for proposal or RPF.

The student said he did the research in collaboration with ethical hacker Nisarg Adhikari and journalists investigating the issue.