The Employment and Technical Education and Training (ETE&T) Department has expressed apprehension that counselling for the Odisha Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE) may not start on time unless the approved list of professional and technical institutes is furnished by the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) at the earliest.
The Department has requested the Council to send the approved list soon so that seat matrix for counselling could be chalked out. With barely a month to go for the first round of counselling to be completed as per schedule, the Department is wary of the delay in furnishing the list by the Council.
The OJEE was held on May 12 and the results are expected by the first week of June. Since it will be followed by the web-based counselling, the OJEE authorities will have to fix the seat matrix well before that.
Anticipating that the rush towards the end could lead to a delay in the counselling which in turn may affect the academic calendar, Commissioner-cum-Secretary, ETE&T Department,Chandra Sekhar Kumar had first written to the AICTE on April 30, seeking the list of approved institutions and their intake but to no avail. The Department again shot off a letter on May 23.
“As per the schedule prescribed by the Council in pursuance of the judgment of the Supreme Court last year, the first round of counselling is to be completed on or before June 30 and the last round by July 20. But till date, the consolidated approval for 2013-14 has not been received for which OJEE Committee is facing difficulty in preparing the seat matrix,” the letter to Chairman of AICTE stated. The seat matrix is put up on the website for information of the students.
While the AICTE is yet to furnish the list, some private professional and technical institutes are submitting print-outs of the approval of the AICTE regarding their intake capacity requesting that the same should be used for reflecting the seat matrix. But, the print-outs cannot be relied upon as it has no authenticity and hence candidates cannot be sponsored to take admission, the Department sources said.
“Delay in furnishing the approval is creating a lot of confusion and inconvenience in the counselling and may jeopardise the whole process. Any delay in commencing the counselling process will not only vitiate the non-negotiable calendar of the Biju Patnaik Technical University but also violate the order of the apex court,” the letter to AICTE said.
