Thursday 26 May 2011

HC to decide on cut-off marks issue

BHUBANESWAR: The fate of OJEE rank holders, who have scored less than 50 per cent marks in Plus-II and Plus-III, will be decided by the Orissa High Court.

OJEE chairman L N Panda on Thursday said the government will request the high court to take a decision on cut-off before counselling starts. The JEE authorities are planning to start counselling in first week of July for admission into medical, engineering and MCA seats.

The committee will meet on Friday to take a decision on the mode of counselling whether it should be web-based or one-on-one meeting with the eligible aspirants, Panda said.

The HC, in its interim order on March 23, allowed those securing less than the cut-off marks in the qualifying examinations to apply for OJEE after Orissa Private Engineering College Association (OPECA) secretary Binod Dash challenged the eligibility criteria.

The Orissa JEE authorities had fixed 50 per cent cut-off marks in qualifying examinations for general students and 45 per cent for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for the OJEE as per AllIndia Council for Technical Education (AICTE) norms.

OPECA has pleaded that the AICTE had changed the eligibility criteria in a hurry without taking all stakeholders into confidence and technical education in state is governed by the Orissa Professional Education Act 2007.

OPECA has over 130-odd private AICTE approved institutions as its members, which are affiliated to Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT), Rourkela.

The private engineering colleges fear that the eligibility criteria of cut-off marks will further reduce their intake in engineering rendering several thousands seat vacant. Of the around 40,000 seats available in the private colleges in Orissa, around 21,000 remained vacant in 2010. Over 10,000 engineering seats were vacant in 2009. 

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