The final-year undergraduate students of Calcutta University will have only two hours to answer questions, officials said.

The papers will have fewer questions so that the examinees are required to write less and do not need more than half an hour to download the questions and upload the answers, as directed by the UGC last week.

The UGC had on September 16 told the university that it was free to hold open-book exams as part of the end semester/ final-year test “so long as they are timed for two or three hours”.

The CU pro-vice-chancellor for academic affairs, Ashis Chatterjee, on Monday informed the principals that each day’s test would be of two hours, the head of a college said.

“The UGC has specified that students will have half an hour to download the questions and upload the answers and struck down the university’s previous decision that the examinees would be allowed 24 hours to upload the answers,” an official of the university said.

“Fewer questions mean students will have to write less. They have to scan a lesser number of pages and will upload the scripts faster.”

Pro-VC Chatterjee met college principals at Rajabazar Science College on Monday afternoon to discuss how to conduct the exams following the UGC instructions and told them they must submit the marks by October 18.

The UGC in a separate advisory to the higher education department on September 16 said the results should be published by the end of October so admissions to postgraduate courses could begin on time. “This can be done only if the marks are submitted by October 18,” said an official.

Repeated calls to the pro-VC went unanswered.

It has been decided that the university will send the questions through email to the colleges on the exam days. The colleges will upload the questions on their website.

Sources said that at Monday’s meeting the principals of colleges in the Sunderbans area sought to know how their students would send the answers in the stipulated time as the Net link there has been poor since Cyclone Amphan struck in May.

“The pro-VC has left it to us to overcome the odds and said the UGC’s guidelines are sacrosanct,” said a principal.

The principal of New Alipore College, Joydeep Sarangi, said they had purchased a software that would enable students to upload the scanned scripts on the college’s website. “As sending so many PDFs through email could pose a problem, we are asking students to upload the scripts on the website,” he said.