Students at a college admission counter in Bhubaneswar. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, July 10: With the application procedure for Plus Two admissions drawing to a close, all eyes would now be on the first selection merit list to be published on July 22 at 11am.

The online application closed on Saturday midnight. As many as 3,53,800 candidates have applied against the total sanctioned strength of 3,05,356 seats in the 1,282 junior colleges, which have been included under the e-admission process. Two-hundred self-financing institutions figure in this list. The applicants have to submit their forms by July 11 at the Students’ Academic Management System (Sams) resource centres.

As many as 377 junior colleges across the state have been converted into Sams resource centres, the details of which are available on the department of higher education (DHE)’s website www.dheorissa.in. So far, only 2,40,202 forms have been submitted. If a candidate fails to submit his/her form at the Sams resource centre, then it would be considered invalid and he/she would not be considered for admission.

Even though there are around 28 colleges conducting offline admission, there is a great possibility of thousands of seats going vacant this year.

Earlier, the DHE had blacklisted 11 junior colleges for this academic year.

Out of them, seven got the nod to admit students after submitting an affidavit that they would fulfil the prescribed norms of the state government within three months. “We allowed seven colleges for admission after the college authorities concerned submitted affidavits promising to conform to the norms.

“Since we did not receive any communication from the four other colleges, they are debarred from the admission process,” said Maguni Charan Lenka, DHE additional secretary. The e-application process, introduced for the first time for Plus Two admission, was marked with minor hiccups as the server went slow during the last few days of application.

However, the problem was soon fixed. “Overall the format was successful and we got support from the students and their parents,” said Chandra Shekhar Kumar, DHE secretary. He said every year around two and a half lakh out of the over three lakh students, who appear for matriculation, enrol for junior colleges. The others, he said, opt for diplomas in various disciplines which creates vacancies in the sanctioned strength for junior colleges.

The admission as per the first list will take place from July 29. Classes are scheduled to begin from August 25.