Bhubaneswar: Less than 50,000 candidates from the state have registered for the Joint Entrance Examination (Main) this year.

This time, 44,488 students will be taking the test, while last year, 44,480 candidates had registered for it. The figures indicate that there has been no increase in the number of students keen to take the examination.

The examination is scheduled to be held on April 8. The online examination will be held on April 15 and 16, 2018.

The state government had decided to take part in the JEE (Main) process this year for admissions in private and government colleges in the state.

The answer key and OMR (tentative) will be released between April 24 and 27, while the result is likely to be announced on April 30.

More than 31,000 engineering seats were lying vacant last year across the state even after hosting the special Odisha Joint Entrance Examination. Only around 12,000 seats, both in government and private engineering colleges, had been filled in 2017, which is around merely 18 per cent of the total seats.

While 24,988 out of 45,844 seats had remained vacant in 2013, around 30,494 seats of 46,369 could not be filled in 2014. In 2015, as many as 27,786 seats of 46,425 were left vacant. Last year, around 75 per cent seats remained vacant.

Experts feel that a large number of seats will remain vacant this year as well.

The Odisha Private Engineering Colleges' Association has been urging the government to conduct the Odisha Joint Entrance Examination instead of taking part in the JEE Main. The association had also sought the intervention of chief minister Naveen Patnaik on the issue.

"There is an urgent need for the state to hold its own engineering examination like other states," association secretary Binod Dash said.

It claimed that several prominent states in the country ahead in technical education, including Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, conducted their own entrance examinations. There are around 50,000 seats in 90 private engineering colleges in the state.