Bhubaneswar, Aug. 7: Counselling for admission into seven bachelor degree courses being offered by nine colleges under the Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) here concluded on Saturday.
For a sanctioned strength of 608 seats in these colleges, 591 candidates were enrolled.
The counselling process had begun on August 2 and intimation letters were dispatched to 2,704 aspirants.
All seats were filled up in streams such as B.Sc in agriculture (288 seats), horticulture (48 seats), forestry (48 seats), B.Tech in agriculture (64 seats) and fisheries (60 seats). Another 73 students were admitted in veterinary science. The remaining six seats would be filled up by August 31 as these are under the Veterinary Council of India. Similarly, 10 seats were lying vacant in home science as only 22 students have taken admission against the sanctioned strength of 32 seats.
Keeping an eye on the demand for B.Sc in agriculture, the state government has added 96 seats to the earlier existing seat strength and candidates have shown an excellent response to this course.
“As a degree in agriculture is gaining popularity and many employment opportunities related to this field are opening up, my son decided to apply for it and has also secured admission,” said Sankarshan Das, a parent.
OUAT vice-chancellor D.P. Ray said that a wide range of job prospects is the reason behind the tremendous response of students taking admission in various courses.
“As these courses have good job potential, in private as well as government sectors, students are interested to pursue these courses,” said Ray. He exuded hope that all the vacant seats in home science would be filled up by candidates listed on the “waiting list”.
As many as 12,453 aspirants had applied to the nine colleges under OUAT while 10,885 aspirants had appeared for the common entrance examination.
The entrance examination was conducted at 40 centres across the state. The results of the entrance exams were published on June 22 and 7,731 aspirants had qualified for admissions.
