Bhubaneswar, April 12: Engineering schools across Odisha have urged the state government for a "simplified and student friendly" e-counselling for admissions into diploma courses.

Stating that the current process for diploma admissions is "extremely complicated", the institutes have insisted for an e-admission process designed on the lines of Plus Two e-admissions to make it convenient for the candidates.

"The current admission process for diploma engineering courses requires the candidate to come to the nodal centre multiple times spending huge amount of money and time," said G.P. Mishra, proprietor of a private diploma engineering college in Bhubaneswar.

This complicated procedure is one of the main reasons for low admissions, rued Mishra.

Though about 50,000 candidates appear for the Diploma Entrance Test every year, only 30 to 40 per cent of the candidates take admission. Almost 60 per cent of the seats have remained vacant in these colleges for the past five years. "Lack of awareness among those, who pass high school, on how to deal with the complex e-counselling process and the use of Internet are another reasons," said Pravat Mohapatra, owner of another private institutions.

Pointing out at how the admission of more than three lakh students for Plus Two is being successfully carried out without any hindrance, the colleges have approached to the state government to make the admission student-friendly and less expensive for the aspirants.

In case of Plus Two, the admission is conducted through a software technology process named the Student Academic Management System (SAMS). But in the case of diploma engineering admission, it is conducted through nodal centres.

The Plus Two aspirants need not visit SAMS centre for admission at all. They enter their choice and lock it on Internet according to their convenience. However, the engineering aspirants are bound to visit the nodal centre for verification of the original documents before the admission or allotment of institutions. The candidate has to select his choice of branch and institution at the centre.

Besides, admission authorities only allot seats through software processing, according to their merit, in case of the Plus Two aspirants. Other processes such as submission and verification of documents and fee deposit are made at respective institutions. But, for the engineering candidates, the admission authorities at nodal centres control the choice-locking , document-verification and fee-deposit processes.

Members under the banner Odisha Private Engineering Schools' Association further alleged that while the higher education department conducted admission for Plus Two courses for more than three lakh students only in 30 days, that for the diploma engineering courses took more than three months for only 50,000 candidates because of unnecessary delay at various levels.