This year onwards the state education department has decided to conduct the entire college admissions process on the basis of marks attained in the board examination and colleges would not be allowed to take any admission test.

Higher education department today organised a meeting with the principals of the government and government -aided colleges to direct the undergraduate admission process where a few colleges wanted to continue with the admission process by conducting admission tests.

State education minister Partha Chatterjee, however, urged the colleges to bring uniformity and announce to admit students on the basis of marks.

An official said, “Merit lists will be followed by all the colleges and the marks of all the boards will be considered at par.” From filling up the admission forms to document verification, the candidates can do everything without their physical presence at the colleges.

The admission process will start after the results of the higher secondary examination is published.

S Shukla, additional chief secretary of the state higher education department said, “Admission process is going to be online where a student does not need to physically visit any colleges before the classes resume. The colleges will create a virtual help desk for the students.”

The virtual help desk will be formed by the colleges for the undergraduate admission at the state higher education department has decided to keep the entire process online to mute the function of student unions who are allegedly been accused of the corruption in the admission process every year.

Colleges will inform their students before getting admission in the undergraduate level that if the documents are faulty, their admission will be cancelled after state higher education department announced that from this year onwards document verification will be done after the classes resumed.

The colleges in rural or semi-urban side may face some technical glitches during the process. Raising the issue, a few colleges questioned education minister.

Chatterjee, in turn, asked the panchayat department to provide authorised service centres where the students can go and complete the process.

The principal of a college in Palasi, Nadia district said, “Last time, during the online form fill up, the students faced severe technical problems. Since cyber cafes charge exorbitantly, we have asked the department to look into the matter so that the entire process can run smoothly.

University of Calcutta (CU) has already announced that by 10 June all colleges need to publish the merit list and by 12 June the admission process will resume and must be finished by 6 July.

Classes will commence from the first week of July.