Infrastructure first, then online admission in Bengal: Minister

Despite facing flak from the opposition Left Front and the BJP for scrapping the mandatory online admission procedure in West Bengal, Education Minister Partha Chatterjee Monday said an online system will come into effect only after creating the necessary infrastructure.

"We will first develop infrastructure in all colleges for online admissions, then launch the service," Chatterjee told reporters here.

Citing inadequate infrastructure, the minister had announced May 29 the decision to drop the online admission system to undergraduate courses in state-run colleges, that was made mandatory from 2014-15 through an earlier government notification.

The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Left Front said the move will encourage malpractice and nepotism.

Chatterjee said 75 colleges in Bengal have the infrastructure for online admissions and they will continue with the process, while 519 colleges are yet to put in place the proper infrastructure.

"We will try as swiftly as possible to reinstate the system," he said.

Meanwhile, an admission helpline - 1800 103 7033 - has been launched.

A Students' Federation of India (SFI) delegation took out a rally here and submitted its demand to Chatterjee regarding restart of the facility to "ensure corruption-free admissions based on merit".

"The only way to ensure this is through a central online admission... it must start this at the earliest," SFI state secretary Debajyoti Das said.