Engineering aspirants willing to study in government colleges of Bihar will not have to appear for separate entrance examinations from 2019.

The seats of the colleges will be filled on the basis of Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) which is conducted by the Centre for admitting students to NITs and IITs.

A policy decision in this regard has been taken by the Bihar Combined Entrance Competitive Examination Board (BCECEB), which used to conduct the examination to fill seats in government engineering colleges.

Bihar board of revenue chairman Sunil Kumar Singh, who also happens to be the ex-officio chairman of the BCECEB, shared the information with The Telegraph on Monday.

“A few days back a meeting was convened in which principal secretary of science and technology department and the controller of BCECEB took part. In the meeting the idea of admitting students in state engineering colleges on the basis of JEE score was discussed and everybody supported it,” Singh said.

He said the proposal would now be put up for formal approval of the BCECEB board meeting scheduled for October 22 after which the decision would be formalised.

Citing reasons for effecting the change, the BCECEB chairman said the admission to state medical colleges was already being done on the basis of national eligibility-cum-entrance test (NEET) and it was decided that it could be done in case of engineering colleges as well instead of holding a separate entrance test for the state colleges.

Singh said even the science and technology department, under which the engineering colleges function, supported the idea.

The proposal appears to have hit the right chord with engineering students who appeared happy with the decision.

“It is always better to appear for less number of tests because it not only saves time but also saves the expenses one has to incur to take separate examinations,” said Samir Raj, an engineering aspirant from Motihari.

Similar was the reaction of Patna-based Abhinandan Sharma who is preparing for engineering entrance examination.

“Now we will be able to give full attention to JEE instead of preparing separately for the state examination. It is a good decision,” he said.

There are 19 government engineering colleges in Bihar which have over 4,000 seats under different trades.