More than 3,300 seats are available in different engineering streams in the 14 colleges for which the counselling started today.

The new colleges, which were affiliated prior to the PTU test this year, are located at Moga and Ropar. While two others at Pojewal and Derabassi got the affiliation after the test in May.

According to Registrar R.L. Dhir, apart from four new affiliated colleges, 40 additional seats have been created in the mechanical engineering and instrumentation streams in the colleges at Mohali and Faridkot.

The admissions have been delayed this year because of the muddle created by the Combined Entrance Test conducted by the PTU.

The original merit list was challenged in the high court following which all the papers were rechecked and fresh merit list were prepared. The high court also held a ``lok adalat'' here last week following which marks of 103 students had increased.

Today was the first day of counselling, which would continue till September 30. The academic sessions for engineering courses in the state would now commence from October 3.