BHUBANESWAR: With the demand-supply gap widening in technical education, Skill Development and Technical Education (SDTE) department has slashed 126 seats in two Government engineering colleges from the 2019-20 academic session.
Taking the poor intake of students into consideration, seats in two disciplines including B Tech in Metallurgy at Parala Maharaj Engineering College, Berhampur and Government Engineering College, Keonjhar have been cut by half, Secretary Sanjay Singh said.
According to sources, only two to three students were taking admission in the disciplines in the above colleges for the last couple of years.
Meanwhile, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has reduced 3,947 BTech seats from private engineering colleges in the State.
The total BTech seat strength in the state has thus come down from 38,296 in 2018-19 to 34,223 in 2019-20.
Odisha Private Engineering College Association (OPECA) general secretary Binod Dash said many private engineering colleges had approached AICTE to reduce their seats in view of the large scale vacancies in the recent years.
Odisha has 80 private engineering colleges, almost all of whom are grappling with over 40 per cent vacancy.
With job opportunities squeezing, the demand for engineering degrees in the State has registered a steep decline in the recent years so much so that nearly 26,000 BTech seats in the private colleges remained vacant after Special OJEE last year.
Unable to fill the seats, the OJEE authority then handed over the vacant seats to the colleges, which were able to fill only half the number in the later stages.
The OPECA general secretary said the reduction of seats will help private colleges manage their academic affairs more efficiently.
The engineering colleges are hopeful that around 80 per cent of seats will be filled up this year as over 40,000 students from the State have secured rank in the JEE (main), he said. The Special OJEE is scheduled on July 21.