Worried over largescale vacancies in different technical colleges in Orissa, the state government has been forced to press the pause button. In the coming academic year, the government is planning not to give its nod to any new technical college.

Principal secretary, industries, T Ramachandru, said, "Vacancies in technical colleges are disturbing. We must take steps to make the situation stable."

However, sources said at least four new technical colleges are set to get functional in the next academic session. There are a total 107 engineering colleges in Orissa with a total of 43,000 engineering seats of which nearly 17,000 seats remained vacant last year.

Ramachandru said, "The government is contemplating working out a policy in this regard soon."

On the other hand, private engineering colleges said the state government plays practically no role in sanctioning new technical colleges. "Going by guidelines, if the state government does not submit a no objection certificate (NOC) within a month of application then it would be regarded as an approval. In most cases, the government never provided NOC within a month. As a result, engineering colleges mushroomed across the state in the last few years," said a private engineering college owner.

Sources said, the state government should review infrastructure, faculty and other facilities in technical colleges. But most of the new engineering colleges in the state do not have adequate infrastructure. As a result, not many students prefer to take admission. Before setting up of the Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT) in 2002, there were only five government and one private engineering college under various universities in the state. With the formation of BPUT the number of colleges providing technical education went up to 149 over the years. In 2009, only 33 new engineering colleges were added to the existing 62 technical institutes increasing the seat strength from 23,000 to a whopping 38,000.

The Orissa Private Engineering College Association (OPECA) said due to the "wrong" policies of the state government, a large number of seats is lying vacant. "There is no problem in opening new engineering colleges provided we have students. There is a huge gap between demand and supply," said secretary, OPECA, Binod Dash.

Currently, there are 97 colleges offering B Tech, MBA, MCA and Barch courses. B Pharm can be pursued in 16 colleges, MBA in 27 colleges and MCA in 12 colleges. In the last academic year, 30,816 students were admitted in engineering colleges under BPUT.