Bhubaneswar, June 23: Odisha Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE) counselling for admission into technical courses began today.

In the first phase, counselling started for admission of the lateral entry students in BTech, BPharm and MCA.

Students can lock their choices of colleges and preferred branch of study by logging on to the OJEE portal, www.ojee.nic.

After paying fees, all the registered candidates have to report to the assigned nodal centre for verification of their documents. According to sources, 25 nodal centres will be available for students in all major cities of the state.

The verification process for the first phase will start on July 18, following which seats will be allotted. Rank, eligibility and reservation criteria will be checked for seat allotment. "All the candidates shall get a chance to withdraw after temporary allotment. If the candidates do not find a suitable college, they can opt out of the online counselling process," said OJEE chairman Tushar Kant Nath.

He also said that since choice-locking would be a one-time activity, one should be careful.

In the second phase, counselling for MPharm, MTech, MArch, MPlan and MBA will begin on June 27. Counselling for BTech, BPharm and BArch will tentatively start on July 4.

This year, 46,187 candidates appeared for the OJEE. Of these, 16,896 have cleared BTech through lateral entry, while 2,694 students have been allotted ranks in MTech. Similarly, 6,717 ranks were allotted for MBA, 1,841 for MCA, 1,290 for lateral entry MCA, 343 for lateral entry pharmacy, 23 for MArch, 52 for MPlan and 547 for MPharm.

Like previous years, engineering (BTech) and medical (MBBS) were not a part of OJEE as the state joined the national-level JEE (Main) for engineering admission and the All India Pre-Medical Test for admission.