At a press conference, Sanjay Kumar, Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy, said, “Some students feel that they should have got more marks than they were actually given. I would like to emphasize that on-screen marking is neither a new concept nor has it been implemented for the first time.”According to Kumar, CBSE first introduced the OSM system in 2014, but it could not continue then due to limitations in technical infrastructure.He said that this system was successfully brought back during the Class 12 board examinations this year. As part of the process, the answer sheets were scanned and converted into PDF copies before evaluation. Kumar said answer sheets of around 98 lakh students were scanned for the examinations.The official said that three levels of security were maintained during the scanning process. He also said that the biggest advantage of digital assessment is that errors in totaling of marks have been eliminated. He said, “One advantage of this is that the mistakes that sometimes occur in totaling have been completely eliminated.”Kumar further said that teachers were trained before the system was implemented. However, officials found around 13,000 answer sheets that could not be read properly after scanning because the students had used very light colored ink.“Eventually, it was also found that we had about 13,000 such answer sheets which no matter how many times we scanned them, they still had some ambiguity because the ink used was very light coloured,” he said. These answer sheets were later manually checked by teachers and the marks were added to the system. Kumar said that special attention has been paid to security and accuracy so that the on-screen marking process remains reliable.Along with defending the new marking process, Kumar also announced changes related to revaluation and verification. He said, “We will charge a fee of Rs 100 from any student who wants to see their answer sheets; a separate fee of Rs 100 will be applicable if they want to get their paper validated; and a fee of Rs 25 will be applicable for re-checking the answer to a specific question.” He said that if the marks of a student increase after scrutiny or revaluation, the entire amount paid by the student will be refunded.He said that both the Education Ministry and CBSE want to ensure that no student is unfairly marked. “Whether it is the Education Ministry or CBSE, the welfare and concerns of all our children are paramount for us,” Kumar said. He said the provision for revaluation was always present in the CBSE system and assured students that the board will ensure that the marks awarded and the totals are “absolutely accurate”.