Bhubaneswar: Engineering and other technical colleges in the state will have additional time to complete admissions for the 2026-27 academic session, with the govt extending the deadline to Sept 14.Skill development and technical education department has allowed admissions to first-year courses as well as lateral entry to the second year of technical and professional programmes to continue till the new deadline. The extension follows the revised academic calendar of All India Council for Technical Education and a request from the Odisha Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE) authorities.The earlier admission schedule was to conclude by mid-August. The OJEE officials had indicated in July that the regular admission process was likely to be completed by early Aug, after which institutions would be allowed to fill vacant seats. The AICTE deadline then in force was Aug 14.The additional window is likely to come as a relief to institutions that are still trying to fill seats. The OJEE has not yet released data on the number of seats vacant after the counselling rounds this year.The OJEE began counselling for BTech and other technical programmes in June after the announcement of the OJEE 2026 results. More than 62,000 candidates were allotted ranks for courses including BTech, BArch, BPlan, BCAT and Integrated MSc.The extension comes at a time when Odisha has also expanded its engineering capacity. The sanctioned BTech intake has increased by around 5,000 seats for 2026-27, following the addition of around 10 technical institutions, taking the total intake to approximately 53,000 seats, compared with around 48,000 in the previous academic session. Govt institutions account for around 6,000 seats.The increase in seats comes against a longstanding challenge of low occupancy in private engineering colleges. Earlier admission reports had highlighted that over 50% of seats in private institutions remained vacant in recent admission cycles.
