Nagpur: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) online portal for obtaining scanned copies of Class 12 answer books remained inaccessible throughout Wednesday, drawing sharp criticism from students who reported login failures, payment errors, and repeated crashes that made it impossible to submit applications. Late in the evening, the portal was restored, and CBSE released data on the number of applications received.
Student Reactions on Social Media
Students and parents expressed their anger on social media over the portal's technical issues. Many complained that despite paying the fees, the portal kept prompting for payment. "The website is repeatedly failing during payment submission. Parents are already under stress, and such poor service is unacceptable," one user posted, demanding that CBSE extend the deadline. Another user stated that more was expected from CBSE and called it "very poor service."
CBSE's Response and Timeline
CBSE issued a circular in the morning acknowledging the technical glitch and said a team of experts was working to resolve it, with the portal expected to resume by 2pm. Students seeking scanned copies for grievance redressal were asked to apply once the portal came back, while those seeking archival copies were advised to wait until the re-evaluation process was completed. By 7.30pm, CBSE posted on X that the portal was functioning and that 1.27 lakh applications for 3.87 lakh scanned answer books had been submitted successfully within three hours. It cautioned that due to sudden traffic, some users might face temporary delays in payment status updates and asked students not to submit repeated requests.
Deadline Extension and Background
CBSE had already extended the original deadline of May 22 by one day, a move that occurred before the portal's technical problems began. The scanned answer sheet facility has been under scrutiny this year following a nationwide uproar over allegations that improper scanning led to drops in student scores. These allegations prompted Union school education secretary Sanjay Kumar to hold a press conference asserting that the process was above board.
