Kolkata, 2 July (H.S.): The West Bengal government has extended the application deadline for undergraduate admissions in colleges and universities across the state. According to a senior official from the state education department, students can now apply through the centralized online portal until July 15. The decision was taken following instructions from Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to ensure greater convenience for students.

The centralized admission portal, launched by the Higher Education Department, has completed two weeks of operation. So far, 3,25,342 students have secured admission and a total of 18,24,914 applications have been submitted. Among them, 2,901 applicants are from outside West Bengal.

The official further stated that the portal's AI-based support chatbot ‘Beena’ has responded to 33,267 queries from students so far, playing a key role in easing the admission process.

Meanwhile, two key portals under the state's education infrastructure — the Banglar Shiksha Portal and the Utsashree Portal (used by the School Service Commission) — have been temporarily shut down from 10 am on Tuesday. These portals will remain inaccessible until 11 am on July 7. The shutdown is believed to be related to technical upgrades concerning reservation categories, particularly those affecting the OBC category, amidst ongoing legal matters.

Notably, the Banglar Shiksha, Utsashree, iOSMS, and Scholarship portals were previously managed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC). While the first two were officially linked to the state's education website, the latter two were not. Now, all four portals will be brought under the control of the West Bengal State Data Centre, which will take over their management and operations.

Hindusthan Samachar / Satya Prakash Singh