Bhubaneswar: A special Odisha Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE) will now be held every year for admission to seats falling vacant in private technical institutions.

The skill development and technical education department, in its order to the chairman of the OJEE Committee, instructed that the entrance be held during June-July.

The test will take place in centres in all the districts of the state.

The decision was taken after Orissa High Court last year asked the state government to come out with a "practical and workable solution" to the longstanding issue of vacant seats.

The matter was placed before the policy planning body that referred it to the government. After examining the court order and the Odisha Professional Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admission and Fixation of Fees) Amendment Act, 2016, the government decided in favour of making the special JEE an annual feature.

"This will provide an opportunity to the students, especially of interior and tribal areas, who fail to apply or appear in the JEE (Main) conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education," said department joint secretary A.K. Nayak.

The detailed schedule of the entrance test will be fixed and notified by the OJEE committee on time.

The special OJEE will be meant for admission into first year of BTech, lateral entry, MBA and MCA programmes.

Odisha Private Engineering Colleges' Association (Opeca) has welcomed the decision.

"The state government has been conducting special OJEE for the last four years and we have been successful in getting more than 4,000 students in this manner," Opeca secretary Binod Dash told The Telegraph.

"Now that it has been made compulsory, it will help everyone," he said.