Bhubaneswar, June 10: Authorities of the Odisha Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE) have decided to conduct web-based counselling for medical aspirants instead of the centralised manual system which was in place until now.

The counselling is scheduled to begin from June 15 at 20 nodal centres set up across the state.

“Candidates can start online registration and choice-filling this Friday onwards. However, we would be able to allot seats only after counselling of the All India Pre-Medical Test gets over,” said OJEE committee secretary Priyabrat Sahoo.

He said 15 per cent of the state’s medical seats were reserved for the all-India candidates and any of these falling vacant are transferred to the OJEE quota.

The OJEE officials are also awaiting a notification from the Medical Council of India (MCI) regarding the proposed enhancement of seats in the state’s medical colleges — SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack, MKCG Medical College and Hospital in Berhampur and VSS Medical College and Hospital in Burla.

“As of now, we don’t have a concrete idea about the seat matrix in medical colleges. We are still waiting for a confirmation from the MCI on whether the number of seats would remain the same or be increased,” he said. Sahoo said there were also plans to set up three extra nodal centres, one each in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Rourkela.

On the other hand, the OJEE officials are yet to finalise the schedule for counselling of the engineering courses though the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) results were announced last night.

In another development, the department of technical education and training has decided that there would be a uniform admission fee of Rs 16,000 for both government and private engineering colleges in the state.

Last year, the fee for government colleges was Rs 16,000 while it was Rs 30,000 for the private colleges.

The authorities have also provided the list of colleges under Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT), along with their fee structure, in the OJEE information brochure and on www.odishajee.com.

Unlike last year, a mock counselling session, conducted to familiarise students with the online counselling process, has also been withdrawn. “The response was not very encouraging last time. So we have decided to do away with the mock sessions,” said an OJEE official.