More than 5,000 candidates have locked their final choice of college on the first day of the Odisha Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE) counselling, at 25 nodal centres set up by OJEE.
The students, who have registered themselves for the online counselling of OJEE, have to mention their final choice of college.
Eight Government and 90 private engineering colleges are taking part in the counselling process along with other management and pharmacy colleges.
OJEE secretary Priyabrata Sahoo said the whole process was conducted smoothly on the first day. Employment and Technical Education and Training (ETET) Department Secretary CS Kumar visited two of the nodal centres in Bhubaneswar to supervise the counselling process.
Kumar along with other ETET Department officials visited the nodal centre at BJB Autonomous College and Odisha University for Agriculture and Technology (OUAT). Senior ETET officials are expected to visit different nodal centres.
This year, OJEE had issued strict instructions that no agent would be allowed within a specific radius of the nodal centres during the counselling hour.
“Every year one could see agents distributing leaflets from various engineering colleges outside the nodal centres. This year, no such thing was observed outside the centres in Bhubaneswar,” said an OJEE official.
The choice for locking the streams and colleges will continue till June 21 for the students and till June 24 for lateral entry. The students have to deposit ` 5,000 as registration fee and ` 450 as counselling fee.
The proceedings have been recorded by the CCTV cameras at the nodal centres.
The provisional allotment of seats will be completed from June 22 to 25 and the final list will be announced on June 30.