The Telangana Board of Intermediate Education (TSBIE) on Tuesday launched an online grievance redressal portal for students appearing for upcoming board exams in the state. The need for a platform arose after last year’s debacle in result declaration, that led to over 20 intermediate students taking their own lives.
The TSBIE with the assistance from the Centre for Good Governance has developed the Board of Intermediate Grievances Redressal System (BIGRS), a website where students can register their grievances.
The website: http://bigrs.telangana.gov.in/ has become operational from Tuesday, announced TSBIE through a press statement. Those who wish to register their complaints can do so with the platform using their phone number. Access to the portal will be granted only after validation of phone number and identity.
The complaints registered on the portal will be directed to officers concerned who will initiate steps to resolve the complaint. Officers from the TSBIE and the office of Commissioner of Intermediate Education will be able to monitor complaints on the dashboard and track the status of each complaint. Clear timeframes have been given to the officers for clearing the complaints.
Apart from complaints by students, the BIGRS will also service complaints from parents, general public and college managements. The board is also planning to step up their social media presence to be more accessible, plans are also being made to set up a BIE helpdesk and a call centre.
Telangana had witnessed a spate of student deaths following the results for the 2019 intermediate exam, the state board equivalent of Class 11 and 12. Over 20 students killed themselves, allegedly dejected with the marks they received.
Students had alleged that there were several errors in the provisional marksheets, which marked many 'absent' or 'fail' though they had cleared the exams. TSBIE was also accused of printing the wrong subject name on the students' marksheets.
Student organisations, parents, and opposition parties blamed TSBIE and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS)-led government, which in turn pinned the blame on the IT firm Globarena that handled the backend data processing of results. The firm replaced Centre for Good Governance (CGG) and was hired on a three-year contract to handle seat allotment, issuing hall tickets and the data processing. This year, the TSBIE has brought back CGG to develop software to handle all exam-related processes.