Cuttack, June 3: The Odisha Private Engineering College Association (Opeca) said it would be "forced to close down its colleges if immediate steps are not taken" to amend the Orissa Professional Educational Institutions (Regulation of Fixation of Fee) Act, 2007.

Amendment to the act is indispensable for survival of the technical institutions in the state that are already weighed down by 60 per cent vacancies, Opeca, the umbrella body of self-financed engineering, MCA and MBA colleges in the state, said in a memorandum yesterday and sought the chief minister's intervention.

"If no serious steps are taken within a month for amending the act, technical education in the state will be on the verge of closure," the memorandum said.

Opeca had submitted an appeal to chief minister Naveen Patnaik on May 27, reiterating its demand for amendment to the act.

It had made its first appeal on April 22.

"If the present situation continues, we will be forced to close down our colleges," the Opeca memorandum said.

"More than Rs 5,000 crore have been invested in the technical colleges within the state, wherein more than 50,000 people are directly employed and around two lakh people are indirectly employed in this sector," it added.

"What is disappointing is that the issue of act amendment has been taken up thrice in the cabinet meetings over the past year, but a decision has been deferred. This shows the government's ignorance and casual attitude towards technical education," Opeca secretary Binod Dash told The Telegraph.

There are 98 degree engineering colleges in the state with 48,687 seats.

While eight of them are government engineering colleges, the rest are the self-financed ones.

"When the act was implemented, the situation was different with demand more than the seats. But today, the demand is less than the seats as the increase in the number of Plus Two science students has been not more than 55 per cent (2001-14) while there has been a tenfold rise in the engineering seats. Consequently, the technical education scenario in the state has become extremely alarming with the number of vacant seats climbing to 60 per cent as compared to 30 per cent in 2009," the memorandum said.

"Though around 60 per cent seats have been remaining vacant during the past six years, the colleges are not being allowed to fill them up on their own because the act is silent on this aspect," Dash said.

The government had formed two committees for amendment to the OPEI Act, 2007. The high power committee for act amendment, formed in 2009, gave its recommendation in January 2010.

The second committee - cabinet committee for act amendment formed in 2012 - gave its recommendation in March 2014.

Earlier, Opeca, in its memorandum, had suggested act amendment by way of filling up of 50 per cent seats by the Odisha candidates, enhancing outside state quota from 15 per cent to 40 per cent - to be filled up from JEE (Main) qualified candidates - and handing over all vacant seats to colleges after second round of counselling and filling up 10 per cent NRI seats through college-level counselling.