Bhubaneswar, Aug. 31: Vacancies in junior and degree colleges have prompted the state higher education department to issue yet another notification for admission.

However, private colleges across the state cannot take part in the admission process.

The classes in junior and degree colleges have begun for this academic session.

Altogether 95,490 and 45,835 seats have fallen vacant in junior and degree colleges, respectively.

According to the notification, students can apply for offline admission between August 31 and September 4. The names of the selected candidates would be put up on the notice board of the colleges on September 7.

The admission would be held on September 8 and 9.

However, students, who have already taken admission, will not be allowed to try again.

Students seeking fresh admission will have to submit their original school-leaving certificate at the time of admission that will be held based on the merit list.

As many as 34 Plus Two colleges of the total 1,521 colleges registered nil admission this year. Of 1,45,581 science seats, 57,552 fell vacant. Similarly, in commerce, out of 48,350 seats, 21,226 fell vacant. In arts 16,691 out of 2,58,844 seats fell vacant.

Nearly 22 science colleges and 10 commerce colleges got less than 10 applications, but not a single student.

In Plus Three, 45,835 seats remained vacant after second phase of admission. There are 718 degree colleges with 2,13,373 seats in the state.

However, most of the seats in the premier Plus Two junior colleges such as the BJB Junior College, RD Women's College, Basic Science College, GM Junior College, FM Junior College, SCS Junior College and Khallikote Junior College have been filled up in the first phase.

This year, the department had increased the number of Plus Two seats by 10 to 20 per cent in the colleges.

Higher education minister Pradeep Panigrahi said the matter would be reviewed to find out the reason behind the decreasing admission.

In 2014 and 2013, the higher education department had issued closure notices to 40 colleges for nil admission.