CBSE fee fiasco: Pradhan seeks FM help

Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Sunday sought assistance from Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to support an overhaul of the CBSE payment gateway system. The development followed after students and parents complained of failed transactions, multiple fee deductions and difficulties in accessing the CBSE post-result services portal during the ongoing verification and re-evaluation process.

During the telephonic discussion, it was decided that four Public Sector Banks (PSBs) — the State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank and Indian Bank — will assist the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in strengthening its payment gateway infrastructure and the necessary integration with the post-examination portal, the Education Ministry said in a statement.

“The banks will enable the CBSE to put in place robust payment protocols to ensure timely payments, address payment glitches, and automatic refunds for excess payments, if any,” it said. According to the statement, Pradhan has directed the CBSE to undertake a “complete overhaul” of its payment gateway system.

“It is envisaged that the coordinated effort with the finance ministry and public sector banks shall ensure seamless digital transactions, improved payment gateway stability and smooth experience for students availing CBSE re-evaluation and related services,” the statement said.

Pradhan has also directed to depute teams of professors and technical experts from IIT-Madras and IIT-Kanpur to examine all the technical issues reported since the rollout of this year’s re-evaluation services and assist the CBSE in ensuring a glitch-free process, the education ministry said.

“The team of experts will implement focused technological improvements and will specifically examine portal stability and server performance. The team will also examine the overall IT Infrastructure and assist in taking corrective measures to ensure that login authentication/user access systems/payment gateways are accurate and in order,” it added.

According to the statement, Pradhan reiterated that “student interests remain paramount” and that all necessary corrective measures need to be undertaken by the CBSE on priority to ensure a “transparent, efficient and student-friendly system”.

CBSE will engage experts from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and IIT-Kanpur to address technical challenges in its post-result services portal. The move comes amid complaints from students and parents over glitches in the CBSE re-evaluation process. On Saturday, Pradhan also sought a detailed report from the CBSE over complaints of technical glitches faced by students during the re-evaluation process. The minister took serious cognisance of issues related to server downtime, payment gateway glitches and operational lapses reported during the process, sources said.