What is an EIIN number and what is it for?

EIIN stands for Educational Institution Identification Number — a unique number assigned to every recognised institution. It is that institution’s permanent identity, much as a national ID number is a person’s.

Why it exists becomes obvious once you notice the naming problem. The country has countless institutions with the same or nearly the same name — “Government College”, “Adarsha High School”, “Mohila College” recur in hundreds of names. Searching by name carries a genuine risk of picking the wrong one, and an EIIN removes that ambiguity entirely.

The moment it matters most to a student is the admission application. When adding a college to a preference list, matching the EIIN rather than stopping at the name is the safe move — because once the fee is paid and the form submitted there is almost no room to correct a mistake.

An EIIN belongs to the institution, not to you — you do not have one of your own. It usually appears on the institution’s letterhead, its notices and its website, and shows up beside a college when you search the admission portal. It generally stays the same even if the institution is renamed.