31,806 engineering seats vacant in Odisha: Minister

Odisha Sun Times Bureau

Bhubaneswar, Aug 1:

Odisha’s minister for Employment and Technical Education and Training Sanjay Dasburma today admitted to 31,806 seats lying vacant in different engineering colleges of the state. The minister claimed the fee hike in the current year dissuaded students in the state from taking up engineering courses.

By the end of first round of counseling for engineering in the state out of 43,006 seats only 11,200 students have taken admission, Dasburma said. Out of them, 400 are students from outside states who have qualified at the national level including those who qualified through OJEE.

The state has 90 engineering colleges including government run and private colleges.

The minister said while the government has complete control over private engineering colleges, it has nothing to do with the fee structure hike as a committee appointed by the Supreme Court fixes the fee structure.

“Second phase counseling will begin on August 4 and end on August 9 and the final outcome will be known on August 14”, the minister informed.

There had been no performance audit of technical education since 2007,  the minister said.