Meet New CBSE Chairperson Mandeep Bhandari
Mandeep Bhandari’s appointment follows a period of intense public scrutiny for the CBSE which faced severe backlash over implementation failures within its On-Screen Marking (OSM) system
NEW DELHI: Senior IAS officer Mandeep K Bhandari has been appointed as the chairperson of Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).
His appointment follows a period of intense public scrutiny for the CBSE, which faced severe backlash over critical implementation failures within its On-Screen Marking (OSM) system.
The OSM system and the post-result process were in for a trouble, with complaints pouring in over the alleged answer-sheet mix-ups, technical glitches in the official web portal, payment failures, and delays in verification and re-evaluation.
The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) approved Bhandari’s appointment. He will take charge from Lokhande Prashant Sitaram, who was holding additional charge as CBSE chairperson, said an order issued by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).
Mandeep K Bhandari is a 2001-batch IAS officer of the AGMUT cadre covering Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram, and the Union Territories, including Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
Bhandari is now serving as Principal Secretary to the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir. Bhandari has completed more than 25 years of service and has worked at 10 different places in 10 posts.
His appointment comes after the Central government removed Rahul Singh as CBSE chairperson and Himanshu Gupta as board secretary on June 2, amid serious lapses in the handling of the CBSE board examination result process. A probe was also ordered into the procurement of the digital evaluation system.
Bhandari has a medicine background. He completed his MBBS from Punjab University, Chandigarh, and Dayanand Medical College and Hospital. His service profile records qualifications in surgery and medicine. He is also an MBBS gold medallist.
Administrative career
Bhandari has held several administrative posts at the Centre and in Union Territories during his career. He had served as Joint Secretary (Drugs) under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also held the additional charge of chief executive officer for the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board while serving in J&K.
In October 2023, he was also appointed as an additional director on the board of Jammu and Kashmir Bank. Earlier, he served an extended tenure of over eight years managing shrine operations in Katra, Jammu, as additional CEO of the Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board.
Mr. Bhandari has also been the private secretary to the Minister of Human Resource Development, as well as Deputy Commissioner and District Magistrate in Leh and Jammu. He has also served as a Secretary in Power Development Department and the sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) in Budgam.