Odisha govt moots easing lateral entry norms to fill up vacant engg seats

Reported by Chinmaya Dehury

Bhubaneswar, July 25:

With a large number of seats lying vacant in various engineering colleges, the Odisha government is contemplating suitable amendment in lateral entry provisions for admission of diploma holders from outside the state to fill up the degree engineering seats.

A meeting has already been held under the chairmanship of Minister for Employment and Technical Education Sanjay Dasburma, where department secretary C S Kumar, Director DIET, Chairman and Secretary of OJEE, Executive Body of Private Engineering College Association (OPECA), MLAs Prafulla Samal and Pranab Balabantaray were present.

The meeting came to the conclusion that after convening a high level meeting with Chief Secretary, Development commissioner, Minister and the department’s Secretary, the outcome will be communicated to the Policy Planning Board (PPB), which acts upon admission relates matters, said a press release of government.

The PPB, headed by Justice A K Parichha, would make necessary amendments to facilitate lateral entry of diploma holders as per the direction of  Supreme Court.

As per the norms and conditions formulated by the state government, only state diploma holders would be eligible for admission into second year of the 4-year B Tech. courses through lateral entry reservations after qualifying Odisha JEE.

However, due to economic recession, the Industrial Sector and different IT Companies have drastically reduced intake of engineering students, which has resulted in not only a crisis of employment opportunities for engineering aspirants and has led to students shifting to general Graduation and PG courses.

However, the educationists feel that the unbridled growth of education institutions has caused the situation. The OPECA has also been pressurising the government to make amendments to facilitate admission of outside students to fill the vacancy.

The AICTE had approved 20,000 numbers of seats by the year of 2008′ However, the number of seats have increased manifold since then. About 50% seats are lying vacant, which has been a mater of concern.

88 Private engineering colleges, eight government engineering colleges are facing such crisis even though Odia students are getting admitted from around 100 diploma institutions.