Kolkata, Feb 24 (PTI) Two days after announcing that students will use a centralised portal for admission in colleges and universities in West Bengal at the undergraduate level, the government on Friday cancelled that notification and said "preparatory steps" are being taken to make a move in that direction.

In the earlier notification on February 22, the state higher education department said students can make use of that portal for online admission from the 2023-24 session. The revised order, however, mentioned no time frame to launch the new process.

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Currently, students use websites of individual colleges and varsities for online admission. The state government was thinking of launching a centralised portal as there have been repeated allegations of corruption in the admission process at the undergraduate level in the past few years.

Indicating that the department will not reverse the decision to go for a centralised admission portal system, the new notice said preparatory steps are being adopted on the issue.

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It also called upon the authorities of universities to which undergraduate colleges are affiliated, to send admission rules to the department by March 2.

A senior higher education department official said that instead of starting the process in a hurry as only a few months are left for the 2023-24 UG admission to start, “we have decided to first see the preparedness of the state-run and aided colleges and universities to be part of a single online portal. Otherwise, students will be affected."

"If the system works out well before July 2023, we may proceed with it but otherwise we will continue with the old system of admission as of now and put in place the new mechanism by the next academic session," he added.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)