File picture of JEE candidates at a counselling centre in Bhubaneswar

Bhubaneswar, June 24: The web-based counselling process for engineering admissions under the Odisha Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE)-2012 is set to commence from June 25.

Online registration and choice filling for engineering aspirants will continue till July 12. Candidates can report at any of the 20 nodal centres in the state for depositing fee, document verification and choice locking on any day from June 29 to July 12 between 9am and 6pm.

The first round of seat allotment will be done on July 19, while the second round allotment will be conducted on July 30.

Students have to report at the allotted institutions from August 2 to 7. Lateral entry (engineering) admissions are already on and will continue till July 19. Students aspiring for MBA, MCA and post-graduate diploma in management (PGDM) courses can choose their colleges from July 6 to July 19. The online registration and choice filling for pharmacy and lateral entry pharmacy will begin on July 2 and go on till July 19.

“The detailed rank-wise schedule for different disciplines would be notified in the OJEE website. A detailed step-by-step procedure for web counselling can also be viewed by the candidates at www.odishajee.com,” said OJEE committee secretary Priyabrat Sahoo. Around 20 nodal centres have been set up for document verification and deposit of fees.

Registration for Post Graduate Admission Test (PGAT) will begin on August 1 and end on August 8. The authorities, however, have clarified that the PGAT schedule is subject to declaration of final-year result of Biju Patnaik University of Technology. Rank cards and counselling brochures have already been dispatched to students.

Medical counselling

The counselling schedule for medical stream is yet to be notified. Authorities said the process is being stalled as they are awaiting a confirmation from the Medical Council of India regarding the seat matrix in medical colleges of Odisha. There was a proposal to enhance the number 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, each having 150 seats.

“But we are not sure if the number of seats would remain the same or be increased. So, we have not brought out any notification in this regard,” said OJEE committee secretary Priyabrat Sahoo, adding that they had decided to conduct web-based counselling for medical aspirants instead of the centralised, manual system which was in place until now. Besides the state-run colleges, there are three private medical colleges — Hitech Medical College, Institute of Medical Science and Sum Hospital and the Kalinga Institute of Medical Science, all in the capital – with an intake capacity of 100 students. There would also be 50 seats at the All India Institute of Medical sciences (AIIMS)-Bhubaneswar from this year, to be filled up through its own entrance test. ‘The Gandhi Dental College in Bhubaneswar and SCB Dental College in Cuttack, with 50 seats each, also admit students through the OJEE.

This year, 96,617 students had taken the joint entrance exam. An additional 100 MBBS seats will be available for admission in the state this year in Hi-Tech Medical College and Hospital, Rourkela under the OJEE. This raises the number of medical seats under OJEE to 650. Around 2,800 students have qualified the OJEE medical for admission this year.