Bhubaneswar, April 3: Around 48,000 students appeared for the offline Joint Entrance (Mains) Examination (JEE) held at 71 centres across the state today.

Students aspiring for BTech and BArch courses in various colleges of the country today appeared for the examination conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). On April 9 and 10, the rest of the applicants will appear for the online paper.

Security was tightened at all the centres in Bhubaneswar, Angul, Balasore, Berhampur, Bhawanipatna, Cuttack, Jeypore, Rourkela and Sambalpur to ensure nothing untoward happens during the examination.

The applicants were not allowed to enter the exam hall with mobile phone, wristwatch and other electronic gadgets. Mobile jammers were also installed around the centres.

The examination was held in two shifts - 9.30am to 12.30pm for the engineering stream and 2pm to 5pm for architecture stream.

The JEE (Main) examination will be followed by the JEE (Advance) examinations that will begin from May 22 for admission into the IITs, NITs and other centrally-funded institutions.

The JEE (Main) 2014 scores will be out on April 27.

In another development, the Council of Higher Secondary Education, Odisha, has set a target of declaring the results of Plus Two examination by the second week of May.

The evaluation of the answer sheets will begin from tomorrow at 49 centres across the state. Around 15,000 teachers will be involved in the process.