UG entry notice by end of May, Bratya allays fear of college heads over vacancy
Telegraph | 26 May 2025
Education minister Bratya Basu said on Sunday a notification on the start of undergraduate admission at the government and aided colleges through the centralised admission portal would be issued by the end of May.
Although the private and autonomous colleges and universities outside the ambit of the state-run portal, have started their admission from the first week of May after the Plus-II results were published, the government and aided colleges have yet to start the process.
This has infused fears of the seats remaining vacant like previous year.
“The notification will be issued by the end of this month,” the minister said after attending the annual conference of the All Bengal Principals’ Council held at the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Golpark.
Metro had earlier reported that the state government has yet to open the centralised portal as it is awaiting legal opinion on the issue of OBC reservation.
Calcutta High Court on May 21, 2024, had quashed the Bengal government’s order that had identified 77 communities as OBCs (Other Backward Classes) and secured reservation for them in Jobs and education.
The state government has challenged the order in the Supreme Court and apprised the apex court in March that the state has undertaken a fresh exercise to identify the potential OBC beneficiaries in the next three months.
The state government recently sought the opinion of the Bengal’s advocate general on the OBC reservation at the undergraduate level before starting the admission process.
Asked whether the opinion has come, minister Basu said: “It has not come as yet. Once it comes, it will be passed on to the highest level of the state government. Then the necessary notification will be issued”.
In response to a question on whether the delay will lead to a situation where the colleges will not have takers for the seats, the minister said: “I don’t think that this will create any crisis. Last year seats had remained vacant in some subjects”.
Last year, a little over four lakh out of the nine lakh undergraduate seats had remained vacant.
The college principals then attributed the delayed start in admission as one of the reasons behind seats remaining vacant in large numbers.
This year again there is a delay owing to the OBC reservation issue.
Many principals had earlier said the process of seeking legal opinion on the OBC reservation issue should have been done much earlier.
Manas Kabi, the secretary of the All Bengal Principals’ Council, said: “We are happy to learn that the notification will be issued very soon.”