Over 99% WBJEE candidates eligible for counselling

Kolkata: Nearly 99.5 percent of the students who had appeared for the West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination this year will be eligible for counselling, which will begin from June 25. The result of the examination on the basis of which students will seek admission to engineering colleges in the state, was declared on Thursday by chairman of West Bengal Joint Entrance Examinations Board (WBJEEB) Malayendu Saha.

A total of 1,13,912 students had registered for the examination this year and 80,979 candidates had sat for the examination, out of which 80,580 students have been successful. Those who have secured zero or negative marks have not figured in the rank list and hence are not eligible for counselling.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee congratulated the students who passed the state Joint Entrance Examinations on Thursday. "Congratulations to all students who excelled and those who passed West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination (WBJEE) 2019. Good wishes to your parents and good luck for all your future endeavours," Banerjee tweeted.

"The detailed list of the number of seats for admission this year is expected to reach us by June 22," said a senior official of the board. The number of seats in engineering colleges in the state was around 34,000 last year. The number of state government institutions including universities is 8, while the number of private colleges is around 80.

Counselling will be held in three sessions and the admission process will be completed by July 20. "We want to ensure that classes in all engineering institutions start by August 1," Saha said. Out of 67,306 registered candidates in the state, 56,077 have been successful while 24,503 out of 46,606 students have been successful from states outside Bengal. Apart from 299 centres in the state, examination was held at two centres in Agartala and one in Silchar, Assam.

Among the successful candidates, the highest number of students (86 percent) hail from West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education. 48,420 students of the HS council had registered for the examination, out of which 41,645 have been successful. The figures of registered and successful candidates are 5,214 and 3,930 for the ISC board, while that in CBSE are 35,575 and 20,471 respectively. In other boards, 14,534 students out of 24,703 have been successful. The board also announced the tentative date of April 19 for the examination next year.