New Delhi, May 29 -- The Central Board of Secondary Education floated three successive tenders for its on-screen marking system before finding a qualified vendor. It received no bids in the first round, failed to find a technically eligible bidder in the second, and relaxed several key requirements in the third, which was issued in August 2025, at which point a mere six months remained before the system was deployed at national scale for Class 12 board examinations, according to documents reviewed by HT and officials familiar with the matter. A senior board official confirmed the sequence. "We wanted to roll out the OSM system in 2026. However, after failing to secure a bidder in the first two rounds of the tender process, we identified sev...