New Delhi: Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, on Monday launched a sharp attack on the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), accusing it of imposing an unfair financial burden on students seeking correction of evaluation errors and profiting from its own mistakes.
In a post on social media platform X, Gandhi alleged that students are required to pay multiple fees to verify and correct marks that may have been wrongly awarded due to errors in the evaluation process. Using the phrase, “Beware of pickpockets – today they’re sitting inside CBSE,” he questioned the charges imposed on students for accessing answer sheets and requesting reviews.
According to Gandhi, students must pay Rs 100 per subject to obtain a digital copy of their answer sheet, Rs 100 per paper for re-totalling of marks, and Rs 25 per question for re-evaluation. He claimed that, in some cases, students may end up spending as much as Rs 2,000 to ensure their papers are properly checked.
The Congress leader further alleged that nearly four lakh students had applied for verification and review, raising questions about the revenue generated through the process. He also criticised the board’s evaluation system, claiming that answer sheets were scanned using mobile phones, increasing the likelihood of mistakes during assessment.
“The mistake is CBSE’s. The punishment is the child’s. The earnings are the government’s,” Gandhi said, arguing that students should not be made to bear the cost of correcting administrative errors.
On Sunday, Gandhi intensified his criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the alleged CBSE OSM controversy. He claimed that concerns of 18.5 lakh students affected by irregularities in the answer-sheet scanning process were being ignored and questioned the government’s response to the issue.
Gandhi also shared a video of his interaction with students and praised them for raising their voices on the matter.
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