Bengal urges Centre to 'reconsider' single engineering entrance exam

Kolkata, March 25: West Bengal on Saturday urged the central Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry to reconsider the decision of conducting single entrance examination for admission to all engineering colleges from 2018.

State Education Minister Partha Chatterjee wrote to the union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar saying such a decision would be against the federal structure.

"We have written a letter to the HRD Ministry stating that taking such a step without the state's consent would be breaking the federal structure. We appeal to them to reconsider the decision," Chatterjee said.

He also pointed out several other inadequacies that the engineering students of the state would face once the move was implemented.

"We have pointed out that the science syllabus (of the various state boards) is not similar. Secondly, the marking system of our state is very conservative. Also the state joint entrance board that is running successfully for the last 40 years, should not be barred from conducting the examination," Chatterjee added.