Bhubaneswar, Jan. 22: The technical education department has received fresh applications from three professional colleges in the state capital for closure of certain courses because of large-scale seat vacancy.

This has come barely a week after 17 private engineering colleges wrote to the department to close down some branches or their institute from the 2013-14 session.

The three applicants are Bhubaneswar Engineering College (BEC), Eastern Academy of Science and Technology (EAST) and Regional College of Management (RCM), an autonomous B-school.

While BEC has applied to close down their MCA course with 60 seats, EAST has requested the closure of their computer science branch (also 60 seats). Last year, the former found only two takers for MCA and the latter could fill only nine seats for computer science.

RCM wishes to discontinue its independent MBA programme as well as MBA in tourism management, each with place for 60 students.

“We have recommended for the closure of the courses to the All-India Council of Technical Education. Once we get a communication from them, we can officially close the courses. However, the present batch of students will be allowed to continue till the completion of their courses. Accordingly, infrastructure and faculty members will be provided,” a department official said.

Of the 17 applications received earlier, the International Institute of Engineering and Technology, Bhubaneswar, had applied to close down altogether citing “no students”. The other 16 had requested for discontinuing some courses.

Although 63,000 students had appeared for Odisha Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE) last year for B.Tech, nearly 18,000 took admissions leaving over 23,000 seats vacant at various colleges.

In another development, the directorate of technical education and training (DTET) this evening held a meeting with promoters of private professional colleges to hear out their demands and proposals to amend the Odisha Private Educational Institutions Act, 2007.

“We demanded that the government carry out admissions on a seat sharing basis – 50 per cent should be filled through OJEE, 25 per cent through All India Engineering Entrance Examination and the rest be filled up at the college level. In case seats remain vacant after the second or third round of counselling, the institutes must be allowed to give direct admission to candidates,” said secretary of Odisha Private Engineering College Association Binod Dash.