The West Bengal government has introduced a centralised online system for admission to undergraduate courses in all state-run, aided or affiliated colleges and universities from the 2023-24 academic session, a notification said.

The single-window platform will allow students to choose their preferred colleges and eliminate the need to pay admission fees multiple times in various institutions to block seats.

In the notification issued on Monday, Principal Secretary Manish Jain said that the online admission system will be maintained and operated by the West Bengal State Council of Higher Education and there will be a dedicated bank account of the council to deposit admission fees.

The council will transfer the admission fees to the respective educational institution within one month from the date of completion of the admission process, it said.

The notification, however, said the Higher Education Department may at its discretion keep any course or institution out of the purview of the centralised admission portal. The government said that the centralised admission system was implemented seeing the plight of the students, who had to apply in various colleges and universities by registering themselves on online portals of different institutions and paying separate application fees.

"A student had to take admission in a particular college within a specific time-frame, block the seat and apply in other institutions where admissions began later. As a result, the student had to pay multiple admission fees in various colleges and faced problems in getting refund from institutions he or she did not take admission finally," the notice stated.

The notification said that considering the need for uniformity and transparency in the admission system of colleges and universities under the administrative control of the Higher Education Department, it wanted to give opportunity to every student to choose the course he or she wanted to study.

"We are prepared. The move will minimise the possibility of a student not getting admission to his or her college and subject of choice as the seats will hopefully not be blocked. We hope that the dates for opening and closure of admissions on the portal will be the same for all institutions," Lady Brabourne College principal Siuli Sarkar said.

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