Calcutta University will introduce four-year BTech courses from the next academic session, replacing the three-year ones that have never been on a par with the programmes offered by other engineering institutes.

The university will admit students to its new BTech programmes through the state joint entrance examination, pro vice-chancellor (academic) Dhrubojyoti Chatterjee said on Monday.

Students who clear the Higher Secondary, ISC, CBSE or equivalent board exams will be eligible to write the entrance test.

"The university had long been considering converting its three-year (six semester) BTech courses into four-year (four semester) ones. We are now ready to implement the four-year courses from the academic session starting July following discussions with the state government and the state joint entrance examination board," Chatterjee said.

Only science graduates were eligible to study the three-year programmes.

"In the old system it took six years for a student - three years for BSc and another three years for BTech - to get the engineering degree. In the new courses, the students will need four years post-HS to become engineers," Chatterjee said.

CU vice-chancellor Suranjan Das had for the first time announced the authorities' intention of introducing four-year BTech courses in 2013 following a 14-hour gherao of university officials by engineering students on the Rajabazar science college campus. The students were demanding four-year courses, citing poor placement of students of the existing programmes.

Metro had last year reported that Calcutta University would start admitting students to its BTech programmes through the state joint entrance examination from the 2015-16 academic session as part of a plan to withdraw the practice of taking in only graduates.

Half the 300 seats spread across eight departments on the Rajabazar campus will be filled through the state JEE. Graduates will be allowed in the remaining seats in the second year of the course.

The four-year courses will be offered in electrical engineering, electronic and computer engineering, computer science and engineering, information technology, optics and optoelectronics, chemical engineering, chemical technology, and polymer science and technology. All the eight courses will be taught on the Rajabazar campus.

Preparations are on for upgrading the infrastructure of all eight departments.

CU already offers a four-year programme in jute technology and admits students to the course through the state JEE.

"Nearly Rs 12 crore is being spent on restructuring laboratories, and setting up workshops and work stations for the new programmes," said pro VC (finance) Sonali Chakraborty Banerjee.

All premier engineering institutes - such as the IITs, Jadavpur University and Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur - offer BTech courses of four-year duration. The BTech courses offered by the private colleges, affiliated to the West Bengal University of Technology, are also of four years.

The three-year BTech courses had been introduced by Calcutta University several decades ago when the degree fetched lucrative jobs.