Government and government-aided colleges that have earned admission fees while admitting undergraduate students have yet to get the money due to them from the state government.

The higher education department, which held the centralised admission process this year, collected the admission fees from students and was supposed to transfer the funds to the colleges.

Colleges depend on admission fees to pay their casual staff and vendors.

Many wondered how they would purchase laboratory instruments if they did not receive the funds on time.

Each student who enrolled in a college paid Rs 4,000 as admission fee.

Until last year, the colleges conducted the admission process independently through stand-alone portals and collected the admission fee directly from students.

Asutosh College said it had yet to get Rs 64 lakh from the higher education department. Behala College said its dues were Rs 24 lakh.

The department owes Rs 44 lakh to New Alipore College, officials at the institutions said.

Education minister Bratya Basu said: “The colleges will get their dues soon.”

The two-phased centralised admissions started on June 24 and continued till September 7.

The system was introduced this year to ensure fewer undergraduate seats remained vacant.

As part of the process, the higher education department collected the seat matrix from each college and the eligibility criteria fixed by the institutions and asked the candidates seeking admission to pay the fee to the designated address fixed by the department.

“In all, 1,600 students have enrolled in our college. Which means we have earned Rs 64 lakh as admission fees. Over a month has passed since the closure of the centralised portal but the funds are yet to be transferred. We struggled to pay salaries and bonuses to the casual staff because of this,” said Manas Kabi, the principal of Asutosh College.

“Colleges rely on these funds to buy laboratory equipment, too.”

Sharmila Mitra, the principal of Behala College, said: “Six hundred students have enrolled in our college. We are yet to get the Rs 24 lakh that is due to us. We have repeatedly written to the senior officials of the department to clear the dues but to no avail. We are struggling to pay the casual staff and the vendors.”

After September 7, the department asked the colleges to fill vacant seats. Of the 9 lakh undergraduate seats, around 4 lakh had no takers at the end of the centralised admissions.

During the independent counselling, which went on till September 30, the colleges directly collected the admission fee from the applicants.

“Many more students were admitted through the centralised counselling. We don’t know when the funds will be transferred,” said the principal of Behala College.

Joydeep Sarangi, the principal of New Alipore College, said: “We submitted all our required data to the appropriate authorities after approval from our end regarding the admission fee. We hope the dues will be cleared.”