The Odisha Private Engineering College Association (OPECA) has requested the State Government for permission to conduct a special Odisha Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE) or allow admission of non-JEE candidates in vacant seats.
In a letter to Skill Development and Technical Education Department Sanjay Singh on Saturday, OPECA said in 2017 the admission is all time low with approximately 4,600 candidates taking admission in various private engineering Colleges. This number would further decrease due to non-reporting of the sponsored candidates to the institutions.
This admission figure is an alarming situation for the association. This sector is a very good employment sector. As in this sector around 50,000 people are directly appointed and around 2 lakh people are employed indirectly and Investment is more than Rs 5,000 crore, OPECA said.
The association further said for last five years more than 60 per cent seats are lying vacant and this year it is more than 94 per cent. In this situation if no immediate step is taken to till up the huge vacancies then most of the colleges will be forced to close down thereby leading to huge unemployment among the masses. Today this sector is doomed and it now requires Government assistance for its revival, the OPECA said.
