Colleges and universities in West Bengal will have a centralised online undergraduate admission process from this year in which a student can apply to multiple colleges by logging into a single portal, instead of visiting the admission portal of individual institutions.

Till now, a candidate applying for an undergraduate course was required to separately log into the websites or portals of various colleges.

The higher education department issued an order on centralised online undergraduate admission process on Tuesday evening, at least five months before the start of the admission season.

Last year, the department had stopped short of coming up with such an order despite education minister Bratya Basu speaking about the introduction of the mechanism in May in state-aided colleges and universities.

This system also aims to do away with the interference of student unions of respective colleges in the admission processes.

Although Tuesday’s order says the mechanism will be introduced at unitary universities, among others, sources in the department said institutions such as Jadavpur and Presidency Universities that conduct admission tests were likely to be kept out of it and allowed to follow their own admission process.

“The department of higher education has decided to use a centralised web-based online admission portal developed by Webel Technology Limited for the undergraduate general degree courses in West Bengal from 2023-24 academic year in all government, government-aided colleges, unitary universities and state-aided affiliating universities, excluding autonomous colleges, minority educational institutions/colleges, training colleges, law colleges….” says an order signed by a deputy secretary of the department.

The order does not apply to colleges and universities offering courses in subjects such as fine arts, performing arts, crafts, dance, music, engineering, pharmacy, nursing and medical courses.

Self-financing colleges, too, have been kept out of the order’s ambit.

A 10-member committee has been constituted under the West Bengal State Council of Higher Education for successful implementation of the system.

A senior official of the department said they had started taking preparatory steps to introduce the system from the upcoming admission season.  “It is a huge logistical exercise. So a committee has been formed to come up with a foolproof system that will be rolled out this year, at the earliest,” he said.

Education minister Basu had on June 29 last year — exactly a month after he himself had announced the plan — said colleges and universities would not have a centralised online undergraduate admission process because some vice-chancellors said they needed time to understand the new system.

“So we are treading with caution this time,” another official of the department said on Tuesday.

In 2014, too, during Basu’s previous stint as education minister, such a system could not be introduced following protests from the Trinamul Congress.