Mandeep K Bhandari Named New CBSE Chairperson Amid Administrative Overhaul
NEW DELHI: The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has officially appointed senior IAS officer Mandeep K Bhandari as the new chairperson of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). The decision, announced by the Department of Personnel and Training on Friday, comes as the government looks to stabilize the leadership of the nation’s premier school education board following a period of significant operational volatility.
Bhandari, a seasoned 2001-batch officer belonging to the AGMUT cadre, currently serves as the Principal Secretary to the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir. His transition to the CBSE is part of a broader bureaucratic reshuffle that saw ten senior officials reassigned to new roles across various government departments.
Addressing the Post-OSM Crisis
The appointment of a permanent head arrives at a critical juncture for the CBSE. The board has been under intense scrutiny for several months, particularly following the implementation of the On-Screen Marking (OSM) system for evaluating student answer sheets. The rollout of this digital evaluation framework was marred by a series of technical failures and administrative hurdles that caused significant distress among students and parents.
Reports of answer-sheet mix-ups, persistent glitches within the evaluation portal, delayed re-evaluation processes, and payment failures triggered widespread backlash. The operational chaos led to a high-level intervention by the Union government earlier this year. In a decisive move on June 2, the government removed the former CBSE chairperson, Rahul Singh, and secretary Himanshu Gupta from their posts. Following these removals, the Centre initiated a formal inquiry into the procurement and execution of the digital evaluation system to determine accountability for the systemic lapses.
A Period of Bureaucratic Reshuffle
Bhandari’s appointment is one of several significant shifts within the central bureaucracy. The Friday notification also confirmed that Vipin Kumar, who previously served as the chairperson of the Airports Authority of India (AAI), has been moved to the Ministry of Rural Development as an Additional Secretary. Meanwhile, Anand Singh has been designated as an Additional Secretary within the Department of Economic Affairs.
For the CBSE, the immediate task for the incoming chairperson will be to restore institutional confidence. With the board responsible for conducting examinations for millions of students annually, resolving the technical debt left by the OSM implementation and streamlining the post-result grievance redressal mechanism will be Bhandari’s top priorities. Observers suggest that his experience in the Jammu and Kashmir administration—a region requiring high-level coordination and crisis management—will be a key asset as he works to stabilize the board’s digital and administrative infrastructure.
As the academic calendar moves into its next cycle, all eyes will be on whether the new leadership can successfully modernize the evaluation process without repeating the operational failures that defined the previous term.
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