More students will be able to find seats for themselves in engineering courses in Calcutta and elsewhere in the districts this year, with the state government allowing six new engineering colleges to start functioning from the current academic session, scheduled to begin from August.

The admissions to the engineering and medical institutions of the state are expected to start next month, after the announcement of the results of the Higher Secondary (HS) exams and the state government-conducted joint entrance examinations (JEE).

Officials of the state JEE board said on Tuesday that the JEE 2003 results are expected to be published in mid-July. As many as 48,644 students have appeared in the exams this year, held on May 4 and May 5, officials said.

Sudipto Mukherjee, additional member-secretary of the JEE board, said that with the opening of the six new colleges this year, the total number of seats in engineering courses in the state will increase to nearly 10,760. Till last year, nearly 9,500 students who appeared in the JEE were accommodated in the engineering courses. The six new colleges will provide nearly 1,260 more seats this year.

Of the six new engineering colleges, two are in Calcutta — one on Chittaranjan Avenue and the other on Sarat Bose Road. The rest are in Sodepur, in North 24 Parganas, at Burdwan, Siliguri and Jalpaiguri.

However, sources in the education department said many students who have appeared in the JEE are concerned at the delay in the announcement of this year’s results.

Many students have appeared simultaneously in the state JEE and the national-level entrance test for admission to various engineering institutions in other states, as well as to the IITs.

They said the results of the national-level entrance tests are likely to be announced soon and a further delay in declaring the state JEE results may lead to confusion.

The students, especially those who hope to qualify for both the state and national-level entrance exams, fear that they might face difficulty in attending the counselling sessions organised by the colleges before the admission tests are conducted, if the dates of announcements of the two results coincide. In that case, the dates for the counselling sessions may overlap.

Sources in the board said that unlike previous years, the current year’s results could not be announced till this week because the JEE exams this time were held in the first week of May. The exams were held in mid-April last year and, accordingly, the results were declared earlier than this year.

“We are aware of the students’ problems and the board is taking adequate measures to ensure that the results are announced as early as possible,” said Mukherjee.

He, however, gave the assurance that the joint entrance results would be announced before the HS results are declared. Last year, the board had announced the JEE results within 57 days of the completion of the exam.

“This year, too, we will announce the results of the 2003 JEE round about the same time,” added Mukherjee.