Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Education ladders towards digitalization have already deferred the first advantage. The board has finished scanning examination application form for student 12^th in Nagpur region, and is predictable to wind up the process for student 10^th shortly.

The board's decision to introduce Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) forms as part of the process for SSC and HSC exams. Anil Pardhi,Nagpurdivisional secretary of the board, said, "We are witnessing a huge saving in man-hours by going digital. Earlier, the whole process of collecting data entered in the application forms would take about 45 days but now are looking to wind up things within 15 days. We have saved 70% of our time due to the innovative steps taken by our board."

"The process of scanning of forms from our region is going on in the city itself and is progressing well. The forms for student 12^th have already been scanned and we have not received any complaint. Now work is already at an advanced stage for student 10^th and the board is confident that the entire process will be completed without any hiccup," said Pardhi.

Earlier, the forms would be filled by students and the board would photo scan them. But there still remained the process of entering partial numerical data into the computers manually. With OMR forms all the data is accounted for by the computer itself and entered into special software which is readily usable by the board.

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So far this is good news for the board which was very anxious on how the new system will work. With the majority of students, especially in rural areas, having never encountered an OMR form there were concerns over incorrect data being entered. The school principals were given the responsibility to ensure that the forms are error free.

This is one of the first steps towards complete digitalization of the examination process for the board. There are plans to ultimately accept fee payments online as well which will reduce the manual work considerably.