Bhubaneswar, Aug. 26: Large-scale vacancies in almost all disciplines under the Orissa Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE)-2011 have forced the authorities to conduct a second phase of web counselling. A decision to this effect was taken by the Policy Planning Body (PPB) of the OJEE on Thursday evening.
As of now, nearly 25,000 out 38,000-odd seats in the engineering stream are lying vacant. Similarly, in MBA, 3,500 out of 5,157 seats available are yet to be filled up and for MCA, the number of vacancies is 2,000 while the sanctioned seat strength is 3,188.
“The second phase of counselling will be conducted between September 3 and 17 to fill up as many seats as possible,” said Sitaram Mohapatra, vice-chairman of the OJEE committee. However, classes in all engineering colleges were scheduled to commence from September 9, he said.
In the second phase of counselling, the candidates are required to go through the same procedure as they did during the first phase — appear at the 23 nodal centres for choice locking and document verification.
The counselling for pharmacy will be conducted on September 3 and 4, for MBA and MCA it is September 5 and 6, for lateral entry in engineering the dates are September 7 and 8, and for engineering courses it is September 9 to 11.
The provisional seat allotment results will be published on September 9 for pharmacy, September 10 for MBA and MCA, September 11 for lateral entry in engineering and September 14 for engineering courses.
Counselling for 30 enhanced seats in dental science courses at the S.C.B. Medical College, Cuttack, and four MBBS vacant seats will take place on September 12 and 13. Of the four vacancies, two are at S.C.B. and one each at V.S.S., Burla, and M.K.C.G., Berhampur. “Another 63 seats in dental science at Hi-Tech Medical College are yet to be filled up. Seats surrendered by the CBSE would be added under OJEE medical seats,” Mohapatra said. Counselling for enhanced medical seats will take place at the College of Engineering and Technology (CET), Bhubaneswar.
However, despite another round of counselling, a glaring number of seats will remain vacant since the minimum eligibility criterion for admissions has been introduced.
Last year, more than 18,000 seats remained vacant in engineering colleges even after two rounds of counselling.
