Bhubaneswar: Online applications for the special Odisha Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE) to fill up vacant seats in various private engineering colleges in the state began on Monday. The process will continue till July 13.

Students qualifying the second (or special) OJEE will be eligible for admission into first year BTech, MBA and MCA courses.

The examination will be held on July 22, while results will be published on July 25. Counselling and choice filling will of seats be held from July 27 to July 29, while temporary seat allotment will be completed by July 30.

Verification of documents at nodal centres will be conducted on August 1 following which the list for final seat allotment will be published on August 3.

From this year, the special OJEE will be held every year to fill vacancies in private technical institutes. The decision was taken after Orissa High Court asked the government to come out with a "practical and workable solution to the longstanding issue of vacant seats" last year.

Following large-scale vacancies in 2014, the high court had directed the government to hold a special OJEE test for BTech (engineering) courses.

The OJEE counselling for JEE (Main) rank holders for admissions into BTech courses is currently underway.

"The first round of seat allotment list will be published on July 2. The documents of candidates will be verified between July 6 and July 12 at nodal centres," said OJEE chairman-in-charge Manish Tripathy.

The second round of seat allotment will be declared on July 14 document verification for which will be done between July 18 and July 20.

The final seat allotment list will be out on July 23 and the documents will be verified on July 25.

A total of 42,288 students had appeared for the JEE (Main) with around 42,283 allotted ranks.