Patna: Governor Satya Pal Malik on Friday cleared the decks for a combined entrance test for all BEd institutes in the state.

The action came a day after Malik, who is also the chancellor of the state's universities, came down heavily on the mushrooming BEd colleges in Bihar.

The step will ensure that BEd institutes have to take admission of candidates on "merit-cum-choice basis" from the result list.

Malik said he had given his approval to the statute for holding the combined entrance test to all BEd institutes which are affiliated to the universities of the state.

On Thursday, the governor, at a function held in AN College, had hit out the "BEd mafia" flourishing in Bihar and maintained that most of these institutes were running without proper infrastructure or teachers with the sole aim of extorting money from the candidates.

He had also hinted that many such institutes were being run by politicians.

According to experts, the combined test will be conducted by universities on rotation. For the session 2018-20, the test will be conducted by Nalanda Open University.

According to the statute, the results are to be published within 30 days of holding of the entrance test.

The test will consist of 120 marks - 15 for General English comprehension; 15 for Hindi, 25 for Logical & Analytical reasoning, 40 for General Awareness and 25 for Teaching-Learning Environment in school. There will be no negative marking.

The test fees for general category students is Rs 1,000. For EBCs, OBCs, women and physically disabled candidates, the fees have been kept at Rs 750. SC/ST aspirants will have to pay a fee of Rs 500.

Bihar has around 300 BEd institutes.