On an average, a little over two lakh students pursue various under graduate (UG) and post graduate (PG) courses at about 200 government and aided arts and science colleges under the Directorate of Collegiate Education.

A senior official from the Higher Education Department told DT Next that a detailed study was conducted to introduce online admissions for students seeking BA, BSc, BCom and BBA courses.

"Based on the study, it has been decided that with the help of IT experts, advanced software will be developed that can handle both online admissions and counselling like it is done for engineering admissions," he said. If the process is adopted, students can download the applications directly from the portal and fill the details, including their preferred courses, before uploading the form.

The software would able to provide more than five options to choose as preferred courses, the official said, adding that students would be offered admission to the course based on the merit list. "The online admission portal, which will be released before the start of the academic year, will also have the list of colleges and the courses offered, and also the fees structure," the official said.

He added that the government's decision to launch online admission for science and arts students would ensure transparency in application process and would also prevent students from crowding at the colleges to collect and submit the applications amid coronavirus threat.

Adding technical experts would be involved during the online counselling process, the official said a trial run of the software would be done using dummy data. Once the process is fine-tuned, admissions process would move online for polytechnic colleges, too.