International Institute of Information and Technology in Bhubaneswar

Bhubaneswar, Aug. 14: The third phase of admissions began at the International Institute of Information and Technology, (IIIT) Bhubaneswar today.

Director of the institute Gopal Krishna Nayak said that the institute was taking students, who had appeared the JEE (Mains), but conducting its own counselling.

The institute has reserved 50 per cent of the seats for domicile students of the state. The rest of the seats are open to all under the others category. The institute got the status of unitary university from this year. Earlier, all its seats were open to the students from the state.

Nayak said that after the counselling process was over, there was a provision of seat conversion in which any seat remaining empty in any other category would be transferred to Odisha state category. At present, 30 per cent of the seats in the state category are reserved for women candidates for BTech programme.

Refusing to give away the details about how many seats have been filled up yet, the official said that since the admission process is going on, it cannot be said how many have been admitted. Many students, who register also tend to withdraw. However, we are planning to start the classes by September 1, he said.

In addition, there is a provision of lateral entry of students in the second year. The total number of seats under the lateral entry scheme is 10 per cent of the sanctioned strength in each branch along with the carry forwarded backlog vacancy from the previous year in the respective branches. Students domiciled in Odisha and possessing diploma in engineering in relevant discipline are eligible to apply for lateral entry scheme.

In order to claim the domicile seats, the candidates must be native of Odisha. And will have to furnish a resident and nativity certificate at the time of document verification, said an official.

The institute currently has 240 seats available for the BTech courses in computer science and engineering (60 seats), information technology (60), electronics and telecommunication (60) and electrical and electronic engineering (60).

The five-year-old institute is doing decently well in the placement sector as well. Companies such as Infosys, IBM, ITC Infotech and Samsung recruited about 90 per cent of the eligible students of the last batch. The institute had earlier announced to reserve 50 per cent seats for Odisha students from this academic session inviting a lot of criticism from many quarters. The institute has also decided to conduct its own qualifying examinations from 2015.

Nayak said: “Such a provision has been made as per the IIIT Act. Also this is important when it comes to a national institute. Similar is the model of admission in all the other state government promoted IIITs in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi.”