Special OJEE to Fill up Engineering College Vacancies-High Court
Orissa High Court on Friday ordered the state government to conduct Odisha Joint Entrance Exam (OJEE) to fill up the vacant engineering, MCA and MBA seats.
The order was passed by Justices I Mohanty and B N Mohapatra while hearing an appeal filed by the Odisha Private Engineering Colleges Association (OPECA) seeking a special JEE to fill up the vacancies.
"The court has directed the state government to conduct the special OJEE from August 2, publish the result positively by August 12 and complete the counselling process by 15th August," said D P Das, OPECA's counsel.
This is for the first time when the state has provided engineering admission to students on the basis of rank scored by them in the JEE Main exam conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), replacing the state-level entrance exams which was conducted earlier.
"The state's decision to admit engineering students on the basis of JEE Main rank was taken in rush and no proper awareness was created about it among the students." said Binod Dash, OPECA secretary.
In its appeal, OPECA has suspected that due to the defective decision of the government, the state has witnessed vacant seats in engineering colleges. The supplicant also highlighted that so far, only 11,200 students have taken admission whereas the intake capacity in 88 private engineering colleges is aroud 47,000. The situation is even worse in MCA and MBA courses as more than 60% of the seats are unfilled in these two courses.
“The court decision will not only benefit the private engineering colleges but also to the thousands of students who were deprived of admissions into engineering colleges," said Dash.
Private engineering colleges are confident that special OJEE will give another opportunity to eligible students to seek admission in technical institutions across the state.