Secretary of employment, technical education and training C.S. Kumar (centre) releases the OJEE results in Bhubaneswar. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, May 30: The results of the Odisha Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE)-2012 were declared today. Secretary of employment, technical education and training, C.S. Kumar, released the results.

However, the scores were made available on the website after almost a four-hour gap. According to officials, students will start getting their rank cards around June 15.

“The counselling will begin in the third week of June and we have decided to go ahead with the web-based system of counselling. There won’t be a second joint entrance exam,” said Kumar.

According to Kumar, the classes are expected to begin in the first week of August. Twenty nodal centres will be set up across the state five days ahead of the counselling sessions. “There will be just one round of counselling,” he said.

A record number of 96,617 students had taken the OJEE on May 6 this year, about 12,000 or 18.2 per cent more than previous years. Of them, 25,934 were girls and 19,976 were outstation candidates. As many as 7,967 scheduled caste and 5,507 scheduled tribe candidates had appeared for the exam. “Interestingly, we had 47 NRI students this year while there were no applicants in this category last year,” said OJEE committee secretary Priyabrata Sahoo.

Exams for engineering, medical, pharmacy, lateral entry B.Tech, lateral entry pharmacy, MBA, MCA and post-graduate admission test (PGAT-M.Tech) were held at 179 centres, of which 34 were outside the state.

Of the 66,923 candidates who applied for B.Tech, 63,634 candidates qualified in the medical stream, 2,852 of the 31,404 candidates came out successful. For pharmacy, 16,859 of the 17,305 examinees cleared the entrance exam and 3,535 out of 5,034 MCA applicants have qualified. Of the 7,645 candidates who applied for MBA and other post graduate diploma courses, 6,916 have qualified.

In engineering, Hrudaya Ranjan Sahoo of Bhubaneswar has aced the exams while Subhadarshini Parhi, also from the capital, has excelled among women candidates. In the medical discipline, Prasanjit Pattnayak of Kendrapara has come out with flying colours and among female examinees, Swadhinata Sahoo of Keonjhar has fared best.

In MCA and MBA, Rashananda Sahoo of Keonjhar and Rani Mittal of Bhubaneswar have fared very well. The success figures for B.Tech lateral entry is 13,162 out of 13,756 candidates and for lateral entry pharmacy, it is 97 out of 123 examinees. Similarly, 726 students applied for PGAT-M.Pharm of which 554 qualified while 2282 of the 2443 PGAT-M.Tech applicants cleared the test.