Bhubaneswar: The online registration for the Odisha Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE) began on Tuesday.
Candidates seeking admission to BPharm, MBA, MCA and engineering courses need to register themselves online till March 20 to appear for the entrance examination.
Aspirants can visit www.ojee.nic.in and apply for the examination scheduled to be held on May 13.
The entrance test is held every year for candidates, who want to pursue professional courses at various colleges and technical universities.
Admissions to various engineering courses in the state will be held through JEE (Main).
Until 2013, admissions into the BTech courses in engineering colleges of the state were conducted through the OJEE.
However, from 2014, with the state government joining the JEE (Main), a common all-India engineering entrance test, students aspiring for BTech seats appeared the JEE (Main) conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education.
The state government has been hosting the special OJEE since the past three years as large number of seats remain vacant in engineering institutes.
This time, the state government is hopeful that there would no requirement for hosting the special OJEE, but the educationists are apprehensive.
Less than 50,000 candidates from the state have registered for the JEE (Main) for this year.
Last year, more than 31,000 engineering seats were lying vacant across the state even after hosting the special Odisha Joint Entrance Examination.
Recently, the Odisha Private Engineering Colleges' Association submitted a proposal to the state government to allow all non-JEE candidates for admission into vacant seats in first-year BTech academic session.
"After two rounds of OJEE counselling, all vacant seats should be handed over to the colleges to be filled up through college-level counselling for the JEE (Main) rank holders. If we could implement this modality, then there shall be no requirement to conduct the special OJEE like previous year," secretary of the Odisha Private Engineering Colleges' Association Binod Dash said.
