The procedure for awarding sports grace marks to students in HSC and SSC board examinations in Maharashtra has been simplified by the School Education and Sports Department. The number of documents required for submitting an application for the grace marks has been reduced from eight to six and the number of fields required to be entered on the website have been reduced from 29 to 21. A government resolution to this effect was signed on March 30.

Students can submit their applications online from January 1 to April 15 every year, according to the new rules.

An auto-fetch facility has now been included on the website through which specific documents such as the student’s photograph and signature, as well as personal details including name, address, date of birth, school name, and gender will be automatically fetched directly from the student’s hall ticket.

A GPR (Governance Process Re-engineering) study was conducted on the Aaple Sarkar portal to address the shortcomings pointed out by the Maharashtra Olympic Association and other organisations. Following this, changes on the website have been carried out and the government has notified the service under the Maharashtra Right to Public Service Act, 2015. The prescribed time limit for this service has been set at 15 working days from the receipt of documents from the applicant.

Further, a three-tier administrative structure has been prescribed to process the applications submitted by students. The first tier will be the Sports Officer who will conduct initial verification of online applications submitted by students and propose marks based on eligibility. Second, the District Sports Officer (DSO) will conduct final scrutiny of applications as an expert authority, determine marks, and recommend the same to the State Board. Finally, the State Board will grant final approval based on the DSO’s recommendation and include it in the student’s marksheet.

Currently, students appearing for the SSC and and HSC board examinations who have participated in official state, national, and international competitions are granted grace marks as follows:

Participation in official international competitions – 25 marks

Participation in official national competitions – 15 marks and proficiency (rank 1 to 3) – 20 marks

Participation in official state-level competitions – 10 marks and proficiency – 15 marks

Participation in official division-level competitions – 5 marks and proficiency – 10 marks

Proficiency in official district-level competitions – 5 marks and participation – 0 marks.