Kolkata, Jul 3 (PTI) West Bengal Education Minister Bratya Basu on Wednesday claimed the state has turned into one of the most preferred destinations for higher education.

He also expressed happiness that over 87,000 applications for undergraduate courses have been sent to the higher education department's admission portal by students from various states.

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Basu said in a post on X that students from states, including Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Assam, Bihar and Maharashtra, among others, have submitted applications to the portal to pursue UG courses in colleges affiliated to the state universities.

He said 87,010 applications were sent as the students from all over India are preferring Bengal as their destination for higher education.

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"We welcome them with open arms," he said.

"Before the portal's launch, our college got queries from all over the world, and we forwarded those to our nodal officer," the Principal of Lady Brabourne College, Siuli Sarkar, told PTI.

According to the feedback from the college nodal officer, Brabourne received around 10,000 applications to the centralised admission portal to date, she said.

The portal will be open till July 7.

(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)