Cuttack, Oct. 4: The Orissa Private Engineering College Association today went for spot counselling at 19 places for registration to a common entrance test (CET) despite the government declaring the process as “invalid”.

The spot counselling will continue till October 7, while the CET has been scheduled for October 11 and central counselling for admissions on October 15.

The association decided to conduct the CET after 8,000-odd seats remained vacant this year even after a second JEE and counselling by the state government. “It’s an unprecedented situation,” said its secretary Binod Dash. “Authorities in most of the colleges will find it very difficult to manage with so many vacant seats,” he rued.

Orissa has 30,800 seats in 93 engineering colleges, of which more than 10,000 were vacant after the government counselling. For the first time, a second JEE was conducted to fill up the vacant seats. But only 3,600 aspirants turned up for the examination. “We requested the government to allow us conduct spot admissions to fill up vacant seats at our end, but in vain,” Dash said.

The state industries department today warned parents and guardians against admissions by private institutions through such process, as they will be treated as “invalid”. “In case of invalid admission, no registration certificate can be issued by the Biju Patnaik University of Technology,” the news release issued by the government said.

Dash, however, claimed that the process undertaken for holding the CET and central counselling was in line with directions issued by the high court. At least 13 private institutions were reportedly armed with permission from the high court to conduct separate entrance tests for admission into engineering, MCA and MBA courses.

The industries department declared that “such admissions are beyond the centralised counselling system of Orissa JEE conducted by the policy planning body of government of Orissa and in violation of Section 11 of the Orissa Professional Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admission and Fixation of Fee) Act, 2007”.

The government clarified that the Supreme Court had ordered for admission of students to all seats, including lateral entry seats in all private and government technical and professional institutions in Orissa through JEE conducted by the policy planning body followed by centralised counselling in order of merit. Accordingly, the government had constituted only one JEE-2009 and there is no other centralised counselling system and spot admission system other than OJEE-2009, it further clarified.