Orissa: Ordinance to regulate admission in Colleges

Bhubaneswar, Mar 7: Despite opposition from the private engineering colleges, the Orissa government has promulgated an ordinance to ban capitation fee and regulate admission in the engineering and medical colleges in the state.

The state cabinet, chaired by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik last week, had decided to regulate the admission, prohibit capitation fees and enforce reservation in Engineering and Medical colleges, besides other professional educational institutions, to ensure quality education in the state and make the system more transparent.

The cabinet decided to conduct a single entrance examination for all the engineering and medical colleges in the state and enforce the reservation of certain percentage of seats for the NRI students and students from other states.

The ordinance, notified yesterday, would enforce a cap on the admission of students from outside the state restricting their numbers to 30 per cent in the Medical Colleges and 33 per cent in the Engineering Colleges.

As per the ordinance, 15 per cent of the seats would be reserved for the NRI students and another 15 per cent for those who passed the All India Joint Entrance Examination Test. Earlier, the private colleges had earmarked 50 per cent of their seats for the joint entrance examination conducted in the state.

The cabinet also decided to set up two committees-Policy Planning Board and Fee Structure Committee and cleared the proposal for creation of Professional Educational Fund.

The violation of new guidelines prescribed by the ordinance would now attract a maximum fine of Rs 10 lakh and imprisonment from six months to three years.

Meanwhile, the Orissa Private Engineering College Association (OPECA) has criticised the ordinance and threatened to move the court stating that the ordinance was a clear violation of the Supreme Court guidelines.

UNI

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