Calcutta, June 19: Over 47,000 students bidding for medical and engineering admission cannot access the joint entrance board website for information without which they cannot appear for counselling.

Barely a week is left for the West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination Board to begin counselling for allotting 21,000 engineering seats and 1,105 in medical. But the three websites named by the board for students to download their rank cards, which act like identity cards containing personal details and which they have to compulsorily produce at the time of counselling, refuse to open.

The websites are also supposed to yield the dates on which students have to appear for counselling that starts at the Science City auditorium on June 26 and will continue till July 14.

Students are called for counselling according to the order of merit.

“Six days are left for counselling and I still cannot access the websites for downloading my rank card. I do not know why the sites are not working. I only hope that I am able to download my rank card before my turn comes,” said Adrija Dutta, a student of Gokhale Memorial School, who has secured the 76th rank in joint entrance (medical).

The board admitted the inconvenience and anxiety caused to students, attributing the problem to a technical fault.

“The rank card contains the student’s photograph and other personal information. The fault has developed because of the low capacities of the websites. We are trying our best to rectify the fault as early as possible,” said Siddhartha Dutta, the board chairman.