Odisha govt urged to reconsider stand on special JEE

Sambad English Bureau Published On : Aug 15, 2014 at 12:45 PM Updated On : Aug 15, 2014 at 1:00 PM

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Aug 15:

A delegation of teachers. staff and students of technical colleges met Employment Training and Technical Education (ET & TE) minister Sanjay Dasburma last evening and urged him to reconsider the stand of the Odisha government against a special Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) in the Supreme Court.

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Talking to newsmen after the meeting, Odisha Technical Colleges’ Association (OTCA) president Biswajit Mohanty said the delegation informed the minister that the Odisha Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE) committee had misled the apex court since it had no authority to challenge the order of the Odisha High Court.

Apart from OTCA, the BPUT Students’ Union (BSU) and Odisha Private Engineering Colleges Association (OPECA) had also called for a judicial probe into the functioning of the OJEE alleging large-scale corruption in its functioning. They had demanded a fixed annual calendar for colleges under Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT), which admit students through OJEE, and deemed universities, which hold their own entrance tests, Mohanty informed.

It may be mentioned that on August 7, the apex court, in response to a petition by the OJEE committee, had stayed the August 1 order of the Odisha High Court in which it had asked the state government to hold the special JEE on August 10.

Meanwhile, OPECA, in a memorandum to the ET&TE minister, has stated that if OJEE was unable to hold a special JEE, the government should assign the task to OPECA.

“We have requested the government to give us a chance to hold the special JEE under OJEE supervision if it is unwilling, since it concerns the future of over 5,000 students who applied for the special entrance,” OPECA secretary Binod Dash said.

He also said OPECA had also requested the government to extend the deadline for engineering admission in view of the floods, since August 15 is the admission deadline as per the Supreme Court directive.

Meanwhile, around 39,000 B.Tech seats have fallen vacant after the final round of admission yesterday.

At present, the total intake capacity of the engineering colleges in the state is 51,121.