Bhubaneswar, Sept. 11: A series of legal tangles and huge vacancies in engineering colleges has blighted the technical education scenario of the state. This has happened despite efforts to streamline the Orissa Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE).

As the second phase of e-counselling ended on Sunday, there is growing concern over declining number of outstation students for OJEE admissions.

Members of Orissa Private Engineering Colleges’ Association (Opeca) — a body that includes all private unaided engineering, MCA, hotel management and architecture institutions in Orissa — said the state had lost out on at least 17,000 engineering aspirants, including 12,000 students from other states.

“Abnormal delay in admissions and constant rescheduling of dates have frustrated students and parents. Therefore, thousands of students chose to take admission in other autonomous universities here or left for neighbouring states. Many have even moved to other courses,” said Antaryami Badu, joint chairman of Aryan Institute of Engineering and Technology, Bhubaneswar.

While thousands of outstation candidates have pulled out of the OJEE admission process, their inflow into the two private universities in the state — KIIT University and Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER) — remains unaffected as the admission system in these universities is far more organised.

KIIT University authorities said around 60 per cent of 2,500 seats are generally filled up by outstation students and the figure is increasing every year. This was why 25 per cent seats at KIIT was reserved for domicile candidates. At the Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER), non-Orissa students occupied 30 per cent of the 1,900 engineering seats, said its director (admissions) Manas Kumar Mallick.

Candidates at an OJEE nodal centre in Bhubaneswar. Telegraph picture

Engineering admissions this year have hit a record low with nearly 68 per cent seats remaining vacant in various colleges under OJEE. The exam was conducted in two phases on May 1 and 8 and the results were announced on May 25. But, the counselling process started after a gap of one-and-half months, on July 8.

Despite 53,954 candidates qualifying for the 40,688 engineering seats in the state, only 13,000 took admission during the first phase of e-counselling.

While the number of seats in engineering colleges has been steadily increasing, the vacancies have also gone up — more so after the e-counselling system was introduced in 2010. Last year, there were only 17,736 takers for the 35,670 available seats across the state.

As per rules, “outside state” or “ZZ” candidates are not eligible for admission in government colleges. Further, only eight per cent seats were reserved for them in the private engineering institutes despite the fact that around 15,000 students from other states qualified the OJEE this year, Opeca members said.

“Only 3200-odd seats were reserved for 15,000 outstation students. After those seats were filled up, the remaining candidates were told that they were not eligible for admission. In this process, we lost out on nearly 12,000 students. If the unoccupied seats under general quota is transferred to the ZZ candidates then many vacancies can be covered up,” said Manoj Samantaray, chairman of Nigam Institute of Engineering and Technology, Cuttack.

“Running to the nodal centres time and again for choice filling, document verification, choice locking and fee deposit was difficult for outstation candidates and so, many withdrew from the OJEE admission process,” Sashi Shekhar Mohanty of the Krutika Institute of Technical Education, Bhubaneswar.

Many students, who failed to meet the eligibility criteria of the All-India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) this year, also could not get admission. Now, a general student with minimum 45 per cent marks in Plus Two science would be eligible for admissions.

“Before the OJEE was conducted, the high court had ordered that any student, who has passed Plus Two science, could sit for the exam. Later, it said minimum 45 per cent marks were mandatory for admissions. Students were confused and left the state. When the primary education system is in a shambles, how can the government expect to revamp technical education by fixing an eligibility criteria?” asked A.K. Sharda, chairman of Rayagada Institute of Technology and Management.

A hike in admission fee for private colleges was another reason for seats being left vacant, Badu alleged. Students have to make an initial payment of Rs 16,000 for a government college and Rs 30,000 for a private institution, unlike previous years when it was Rs 16,000 for all colleges.

“A candidate, who fails to pay the money at the nodal centre in time, forfeits admission. Had students been allowed to approach the colleges directly, we could have considered lowering their fee or asked them to pay in instalments. Seats are available and students, who have cleared OJEE, are interested for admission but our hands are tied,” he added.