Binod Dash

Bhubaneswar, Jan. 14: Promoters of private engineering colleges today demanded an immediate amendment to the Orissa Professional Educational Institutions Act, 2007, failing which many institutes will be forced to close down.

The authorities have sought changes in the existing act so as to allow them admission at college.

The colleges have been seeking amendments in regulation in admission, fixation of fee, prohibition of capitation fee, reservation in admission and so on in the act. The members argue that the Act, in its current form would ultimately lead to collapse of the existing colleges going with vacant seats for the last four years.

“The amendment of the act has to be done immediately. It has become necessary, as the situation of technical education was quite different at the time when the act was framed — the demand was more and the supply was less. But the situation is reverse now. The supply is more while the demand for the course has dipped,” said secretary Odisha Private Engineering College Association (OPECA) Binod Dash.

The colleges said that closing down of the colleges would also lead to large-scale employment in the state.

“More than 50,000 people are directly employed and around two lakh people are indirectly dependant on this sector that has an investment of more than Rs 5,000 crore,” said Dash.

The private colleges alleged that they were assured of taking up amendment of the act in the winter session of the Assembly but it was not.

With the 2015 admission process scheduled to start very soon, the OPECA today appealed to the authorities to take the necessary steps without any further delay.

It can be mentioned here that the state government has since 2009 initiated steps to amend the act by forming a high-power committee.

The committee had recommended the necessary changes in the act following which a cabinet sub-committee was formed for the act amendment. But none of the recommendations have been recommended till date, alleged the members.

“We really fail to understand the intentions of the state government. In spite of visualising the situation of low admission percent in technical colleges since last six years, the government has taken no steps to improve the situation. Rather steps are taken to worsen he situation,” said Dash hinting at the decision of the state government to go for JEE Mains instead of the traditional OJEE.