BHUBANESWAR: The on-going web-based counselling by Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), in all probability, will overshoot its original schedule, thanks to a string of hurdles.
The delay caused by All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) and Medical Council of India (MCI) in releasing status of professional colleges and their intake is the reason why registration, choice filling as well as lock-in deadlines have been delayed.
Besides, it is the non-availability of the updated seat matrix which hit the JEE Committee hard. Sources attribute the reason to the non-cooperation from Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT), under which all professional colleges of Orissa operate.
In the first week of June when the JEE Committee unveiled the web-based counselling, in the State there were 28,508 seats in 95 engineering colleges; 686 seats in MBBS branch of six colleges; 4,177 seats in 67 MBA colleges; 3,613 seats in 60 MCA institutes and 960 seats in 17 pharmacy colleges.
But that was then and the counselling had not kicked off. With a number of new colleges seeking affiliation, existing ones applying for increase in intake as well as second shift, confusion was to follow.
Sources said, for the first few weeks, the JEE Committee had to make do with old seat matrix - as old as 2008-09 before getting the 2009-10 only in the last week.
That added to confusion as students were not in a right position to know the exact status of seats in colleges.
With AICTE delaying release of the revised status, JEE Committee was in a spot. In fact, the AICTE had released a list but withdrew it due to certain errors.
Only BPUT was in the best position to support the JEE Committee with the seat matrix since its personnel were in-charge of counselling in the previous years and it has control over the colleges. It did not happen though. This year, the JEE Committee is headed by the Vice-Chancellor of VSS University of Technology.
The Industries Department is aware of the tug of war between BPUT and JEE Committee but things have not settled yet. Last update said, AICTE has sanctioned five new institutes (three engineering and two management) for the State.