Bhubaneswar, July 20: Odisha Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE) authorities today invited applications to fill up vacant seats in engineering colleges. The seats remained vacant after OJEE and JEE (Main) counselling.

Today's notification for the second OJEE was issued following the Orissa High Court order issued in response to an Odisha Private Engineering College Association petition that argued that many students had failed to apply for the JEE (Main) as they lived in inaccessible areas without proper internet facilities.

The notification states that students who did not appear for JEE (Main) but wish to take admission into technical colleges in the state will be able to take the second OJEE.

Students can apply online between July 22 and 25 for the examination that is scheduled for July 31. The examination fee has been set at Rs 1,000, the authorities said. Students can download their admit cards between July 27 and 30.

The counselling will be held for vacant seats of BTech, MBA, MCA and Lateral Entry MCA programmes in various government and private technical institutes.

OJEE authorities said students who already hold a JEE (Main) 2016 rank would be eligible for counselling. Similarly, students who have qualified MBA, MCA and Lateral Entry MCA programmes through OJEE 2016 do not need to take the exam as they automatically qualify for the second counselling session.

"Students who missed the first counselling can directly attend the second counselling," a senior OJEE official said. He said the written test would be of one hour in which students have to answer 60 multiple-choice questions. The exam will only be held at centres in Bhubaneswar.

The results of the second OJEE will be published on August 3 and rank cards can be downloaded from August 4.

"Students will have to register online and fill in their choices on August 5 and 6. This will be followed by document verification at nodal centres on August 7 and 8. The list of nodal centres for document verification and counselling will be notified later," said OJEE chairman Tusharkant Nath.

Final allotment and reporting will be on August 10.

This is the third consecutive year that a second OJEE will be conducted on court orders. Around 48,000 students wrote the JEE (Main) examination at 71 centres across the state on April 3. However, only 13,060 had locked their choices by the end of counselling. Private colleges are hopeful that at least 5,000 students will register for the second OJEE.