Bhubaneswar, July 29: Students who want to get a bachelor in architecture (BArch) degree have a hundred reasons to cheer. The Council of Architecture (CoA) has approved 100 seats for the course in three government colleges.

The council has allowed College of Engineering and Technology, Bhubaneswar, Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology, Burla and the Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology, Sarang, to increase their seats from the current academic session.

The College of Engineering and Technology will be allowed to increase architecture seats by 20 while the Veer Surendra Sai University of Technlogy and the Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology have been approved 40 each.

Although these colleges already offered BArch courses with approval from the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), they only had 60 seats each.

The AICTE and the CoA had been locked in a battle over governance of architecture colleges in the country.

However, in February, the Union ministry of human resource development made it mandatory for all institutes offering BArch courses to have approval from the architecture council.

Following the order, the three institutes had applied for approval from the CoA.

"I had already applied for a college in Hyderabad. There was a lot of confusion about the approval from CoA. Agents from private colleges were also misleading the students. But now, I can lock my choices for the counselling accordingly," Barun Jagdeo, a BArch aspirant.

The BArch course at Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology and Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology were introduced in 2014-15.

"We have adjusted the e-seat matrix (seat position during online choice selection) accordingly to adjust for the new seats. In case the CoA approves more seats, the seat matrix will change," said Odisha Joint Entrance Examination chairman Tusharkant Nath

The admission process for BArch courses commenced on July 4. Students can fill in their choice fill till July 31, following which, their documents will be verified on August 1 and 2.

Temporary seats will be allotted on August 3, while the final allotment will be on August 5.

Two other private colleges - Piloo Mody College of Architecture, Cuttack and Sudhananda Group Of Institutions (School of Architecture) - also offer BArch coursesin the state with capacities of 200 and 40 seats respectively.