<span style="color: #222222;">For the first time, Odisha will conduct a Common PG Entrance Test for admission into various master's degree courses in the higher educational institutions in the state. The entrance test, scheduled from 12th to the 22nd of this month, will be held at 26 centres across the state.</span><br />''<br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">AIR correspondent reports, more than 62 thousand students would be competing for 15 thousand seats in 68 Universities and colleges when the common test commences. </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The single entrance test, to be conducted within the framework of covid-19 guidelines, is a first of its kind not only in Odisha but also in the entire country. Stating this in a press conference in Bhubaneswar today, the secretary, department of Higher Education added that this unique system will ease up pressure on the examinees, both in terms of money and mobility.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> Until last year, as many as nine state Universities and 59 colleges, offering PG courses, had been conducting their own entrance examinations thereby by compelling the students opting for more than one university and college, to cough up more fees for multiple exams and to travel to multiple locations to take the exam and at times, even to miss the exam if the dates clashed.</span><br />''