Education minister Bratya Basu on Saturday said he hoped to announce the centralised online undergraduate admission system on “Tuesday or Wednesday”.

“We are hopeful that the (centralised undergraduate admissions) portal will be launched this coming Tuesday or Wednesday. Discussions with the chief minister are in the final stages. We hope to get the green signal (from her),” the education minister told reporters on the sidelines of a programme at the Netaji Indore stadium.

Although the education department announced the rollout of the centralised admission system in March, they had not announced the possible date for the launch of the portal.

The plus-II results across the boards had been published by early May.

However, the government and aided colleges could not start the admission process owing to an absence of clarity over the start of the portal, this raised concerns among many.

The Telegraph reported on June 14 that the heads of several front-ranking colleges were concerned about how they would get good students if they were this late and how they would do justice to the syllabus.

The principal of Asutosh College in south Calcutta had said the delay in the start of the undergraduate admission process could force undergraduate aspirants to seek admission to private universities and colleges.

What has left the principals more worried is that the autonomous colleges, minority institutions and unitary universities such as Jadavpur, which would be outside the purview of the portal, have almost completed their screening of applications.

Some of those colleges have even announced that the classes there will start in a few weeks.

Siuli Sarkar, the principal of Lady Brabourne College, told this newspaper on Satur day if the centralised portal is launched by next Tuesday or Wednesday, this will put an end to the uncertainty regarding the undergraduate admission system.

“Once the portal starts receiving applications it will take at least a couple of weeks to complete the exercise. Thereafter, the lists will be published, leading to admissions. We would like Calcutta University to fix the academic calendar in a way so the colleges get enough time to complete the syllabus before the first-semester examinations after the winter vacation. It has to be borne in mind that we are already running behind schedule,” Sarkar said.

Last year, the undergraduate admission process in government and aided colleges started in early June through a stand-alone mechanism (colleges carrying out the admissions exercise on their own) after the department dropped its plan of rolling out the centralised admissions in the absence of adequate preparation.

In the stand-alone system, a candidate desiring to pursue an undergraduate course is required to log into the websites of colleges separately and apply.

In the centralised portal system, an aspirant can apply to multiple colleges by logging into a single portal.

The system, the department has said, is also intended to eliminate the intervention of students’ unions in the admission process.

Ramakrishna Mission Vidyamandira, Belur, an autonomous college, received the applications till Saturday.

Scottish Church College and St Paul’s Cathedral Mission College — the two minority institutions — will receive the applications till Monday.

St Xavier’s College and Ramakrishna Mission Residential College, (Autonomous) have already closed their application window.

An official of the department said they held an online meeting with representatives of the colleges on Saturday regarding the final preparations for the launch.

“We are now finetuning the process,” he said.