Bhubaneswar, Feb. 14: Counselling and lateral entry for OJEE architecture rank holders will be held on February 19 after a gap of more than five months.
The OJEE authorities were unable to conduct counselling after Orissa High Court issued stay orders on admission to these seats.
The court has now permitted the OJEE authorities to conduct the counselling, which will be held only for the College of Engineering (CET) seats for architecture rank holders with valid National Aptitude Test in Architecture (NATA) scores. Counselling will be held on the CET campus
“There are more than 500 interested candidates. The students have already missed one semester. We will request BPUT to make arrangements for extra classes and use of the summer vacations to cover the classes,” said OJEE vice-chairman Sitaram Mohapatra.
Although admission into all other professional courses commenced immediately after the JEE counselling in August 2011, admissions into the architecture seats in CET were held up after a private architecture college (Piloo Mody School of Architecture) filed a case in the high court.
While the state government remains adamant about conducting admissions to architecture seats through OJEE, the private college wants it to be done as per NATA scores, which is conducted by the Council of Architecture.
However, the indefinite delay has resulted in frustration among parents, teachers and among the students waiting to take admission into the government college.
Many students waiting to take admission into CET have been forced to join other institutes and colleges, said a senior faculty member at CET. Over 3,000 students applied to the college last year.
“The same problem had cropped up last year. After the much-delayed counselling, only 17 out of 20 seats could be filled up. This year, the delay has been even more,” said CET principal P.K. Hota.