Universities to go paperless with Samarth portal: Higher education director

Patna: With the increasing adoption of Samarth e-Governance portal, the universities and colleges of Bihar are likely to become paperless soon. This initiative, backed by the ministry of education, aims to streamline academic and administrative processes digitally.

State higher education director N K Agrawal told this newspaper that the Samarth e-Gov Suite would replace manual, paper-based processes with an integrated digital framework, thereby significantly reducing paper consumption and promoting eco-friendly campus practices. This platform manages the entire student and employee lifecycle digitally, from admissions and recruitment to examinations, leave tracking, and payroll processing. It creates a unified, secure repository for all records and data, eliminating the need for physical file movement and storage.

He further pointed out that students and staff can access various services online, such as applying for admissions, tracking promotions, checking results, and managing academic documents, reducing the need for in-person visits and physical paperwork. Besides, it would automate numerous internal workflows, such as leave approvals, financial management, and research project tracking, enhancing efficiency and transparency while minimising manual intervention, he said.

Agrawal said many central and state universities across the country have already implemented or are in the process of implementing the Samarth portal. States like Uttar Pradesh and Odisha have plans for a full-scale transition to make Samarth the exclusive system for all their affiliated higher education institutions.

The higher education institutions of Bihar have also been instructed to shift all their official transactions, including admissions, examinations and financial works from manual mode to the digital mode through Samarth portal, said Agrawal.

The Central University of South Bihar is already using Samarth for its admission portal and other functions. Purnea University has also implemented the scheme for the benefit of its students and staff. Patliputra University is actively integrating the Samarth eGov Suite, with dedicated teams overseeing the transition. Patna University has implemented the scheme partially, with the transaction of salary payments, etc through Samarth portal. Other activities like admissions, examinations, etc will be implemented soon, said PU IQAC director Birendra Prasad.

Education minister Sunil Kumar recently instructed that every activity of all the universities should be visible on the portal so that there is transparency in their work. To make this happen, a special cell has been created in the Bihar State Higher Education Council to monitor the work and provide technical help to universities.