Calcutta University on Wednesday selected eight undergraduate colleges to recommend them to the University Grants Commission (UGC) as centres of excellence.

The UGC, which awarded Presidency College the tag of an institution having the potential of a centre of excellence last year, has set February 28 as the deadline for universities across the country to send their recommendations for the second phase of selection of colleges for the status.

Sixteen colleges had submitted proposals to Calcutta University seeking the centre of excellence status this time.

?We will start inspections at the selected colleges tomorrow to find out whether they deserve the status,? Suranjan Das, pro vice-chancellor (academic affairs) said after Wednesday?s meeting.

The centre for excellence status is significant as every college selected by the UGC gets a grant of between Rs 35 lakh and Rs 1 crore.

The institutes the university selected on Wednesday include Loreto College, St Xavier?s College, Scottish Church College, Ramakrishna Mission Residential College, Narendrapur, Bethune College and Lady Brabourne College.

According to pro vice-chancellor Das, Wednesday?s screening of the 16 applicant colleges was held on the basis of their performance in the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) ratings. ?We have selected only those colleges for our inspections that have been rated high by the NAAC,? said Das.

He clarified, however, that the NAAC rating was not the main criterion for the final selection. ?We are only taking the NAAC rating into consideration to make our process of selection easier,? he said.

The veracity of information regarding infrastructure supplied by the institutions (with first-grade NAAC ratings) will also be checked.