Bhubaneswar: As the final counseling session for engineering candidates in Orissa ended recently, an alarming number of 20,000 seats from the available 37,893 seats have been left vacant. Also, from the 3,675 seats available for the MCA programme, around 2000 seats have been left unoccupied.

The figured are a cause for more worry as about 90 colleges had participated in the online counseling process this year.

A plea to conduct a second Joint Entrance Examination has been made to the Orissa state government by the Orissa Private Engineering College Association (OPECA) in order to fill up the seats remaining vacant.

OPECA honorary secretary Binod Dash had sent a letter to the State Industry Minister recently, saying that if it was not possible for the government to hold another JEE, they should allow OPECA to fill up the remaining seats.

The issue had been raised by private engineering colleges during a meeting of the Policy Planning Body on August 31. The state government had been urged by OPECA to take necessary measure regarding the admission procedure for technical institutions.

Since the counseling ended, private engineering colleges in the state have been asking for permission from the government to fill up the 15 percent NRI quota seats left vacant as well as other vacant seats.

Their plea has been opposed by academicians, who say that the implementation of their proposal would lower the quality of technical education in the state.

Academicians in the state had earlier warned that not all seats in engineering colleges in Orissa would be filled. However, six more new colleges had been set up and the seats in several existing engineering colleges had been increased.