Bhubaneswar, June 23: Incessant phone calls and pompous pamphlets cut no ice any longer!

This time round, private engineering colleges, grappling with large-scale vacancies over the past few years, are pursuing aspirants with freebies — from movie tickets to meals in high-end restaurants.

The tech colleges here believe in going hi-tech. Quite a few of them are bombarding students with offers of chic electronic gadgets such as laptops, tablets and cell phones, but only if they agree to on-the-spot admissions.

Another college in this competition to find takers has adopted a filmi approach.

It exhorts “victorious students” of Odisha Joint Entrance Examination – 2013 to celebrate their success by walking in with their rank cards and walking out with a free Inox movie ticket.

The college is handing out 25 such tickets daily on a first come-first serve basis to catch the latest flicks at the swanky multiplex.

In an image-boosting attempt, the college asks candidates to fill up an enquiry form, meet “counsellors” and catch a glimpse of the “sprawling green campus”.

Some other institutes are staying prepared for campus tours for prospective students and their guardians.

The authorities are even going all out to impress students by arranging for free vehicles for the candidates to want to inspect the college campuses.

A good number of colleges have fielded their staff members in almost every district of the state to act as “OJEE counsellors”. They are camping in various hotels.

Parents and students visiting the hotels for enquiry are not only “counselled” for admission, but also offered sumptuous meals free of cost. Then there is a share of advertisements of “four times non-veg food every day” for students, free textbooks and even fee rebates.

Apart from the new marketing tricks, most institutions have still not given up on blowing their own trumpet. They have brought out lists of placement records of previous years, mentioning the names of popular head-hunters. Their claim, more often than not, is more than 90 per cent placements. Some new offers are “100 per cent placement to eligible candidates” and “100 per cent assistance to deserving candidates”.

In spite of efforts on the part of the OJEE authorities not to allow marketing kiosks at nodal centres, touts are seen distributing leaflets, grading colleges based on their placements, which are arguably dubious.

“Ninety per cent of all placement records are false and misleading. No college in the state has been able to achieve even 50 per cent placements. It is our appeal to all students not to fall for such gimmicks. They must talk to the existing batch of students in a particular college to get a true picture and choose their colleges wisely as it will impact their careers,” said president of the BPUT Students’ Protection Council Biplab Prakash Mohanty.

OJEE committee secretary Priyabrat Sahoo said innocent students often fell into the trap of marketing agents and touts. “Students must stay away from such false allurement, use their own judgement and make the right decision after inspecting a college personally,” Sahoo said.