At least 126 colleges, including 45 in Calcutta, will soon get principals. At present, teachers-in-charge run these colleges.

The West Bengal College Service Commission has completed the recruitment process and has found 126 eligible candidates, a commission source said. The commission will send its recommendations to the colleges for filling up the vacancies after the civic polls, the source said.

This is the first time that the Trinamul government would recruit more than 100 college principals after it came to power in 2011. The commission had last recruited college principals in 2012 when it could fill up the vacancies in only 37 colleges.

"Counselling of all the candidates who figured in the merit list is complete. Around 126 candidates have been found eligible," a senior official in the commission said. He added that the commission could not announce the list of selected candidates because of election commission restrictions in view of the civic polls.

Nearly 235 of the more than 450 colleges in Bengal do not have principals now. A teacher-in-charge runs a college in the absence of a principal.

The morning and day units of Surendranath College, the evening unit of Bangabasi College, Jogesh Chowdhury College (morning), Basanti Devi College, Deshbandhu College, Muralidhar Girls College, South Calcutta Girls' College, B.K.C. College, Dinabandhu Andrews College, Srish Chandra College and Dum Dum Moti Jheel College are some among the institutions to get principals after several years.

An advertisement seeking applications for filling up vacancies in over 220 colleges had been published in December 2013. There were 216 applicants of whom 186 had appeared for interviews. Of them 150 had been shortlisted and finally 126 were selected, the official said.

The Left Front government had started the practice of allowing teachers-in-charge loyal to the party to run colleges instead of appointing principals to ensure that the party remained in control. Since early 2000, the Left Front government had recruited principals after every three years that had resulted in the number of vacancies going up.

Going by the rule, a senior-most teacher of a college is made the teacher-in-charge till a principal is appointed. After coming to power, the Mamata Banerjee government discovered that most teachers-in-charge were CPM loyalists who had been appointed during the Left regime.

In 2013, the Trinamul government adopted a policy to stop the practice of allowing colleges to be run by teachers-in-charge and decided to recruit principals every year instead of after every three years.

But a college principal said: "The present government failed to regularise the recruitment process. The commission had sought applications from college teachers for filling up the vacancies in December 2013. It took more than 16 months for the government to complete the recruitment process."

Metro phoned commission chairman Dipak Kar several times but he did not take the calls.