Bhubaneswar, June 26: Various departments of Utkal University have received fewer application forms as compared to last year.

The number of forms in popular departments such as commerce has fallen by more than half. While there were as many as 1,200 forms for 48 seats in MCom in 2011, the number has dipped to about 600 this year.

Self-financing courses such as finance and control have also suffered with the number of forms dipping from 1,000 in 2011 to 400 this year.

“It is not that seats will remain vacant, but the response is obviously discouraging. We can see no reason except the e- admissions introduced this year. Perhaps, the students are not familiar enough with the online method,” a senior member of the faculty said.

The varsity has decided to extend the last date of form fill-up from June 30 to July 10, expecting some more response.

“There were a lot of holidays — Raja and rath yatra in between. This would have caused the problem. Also, the university was having its summer vacations and most of the departments were not able to process the application forms. We hope that date extension might bring in some more applications,” said PG council chairman P.K. Mishra.

The mismatch of information on the university website and that of individual departments have created confusion among the students. “While the university website says that we need to make a draft of Rs 400, according to the departments’ website, the draft has to be of Rs 500. This is confusing,” said Jyoti, a student.

Insiders blamed it on the lack of co-ordination among the authorities. The self-financing departments had decided to increase the fee, but they did not inform those handling the e-counselling websites, which results in confusion.

In an attempt to pull students, some departments are independently bringing out advertisements in various media without informing the e-admission team about the changes they have made. “This results in mismatch of information on the website and in print advertisements,” a senior academician said.

A schedule with proper dates is also missing in the system, leaving students in uncertainty.

“Everyday we receive calls from students asking us about the dates for entrance exams and on when they would receive their admit a cards. We have no clue as the administration is yet to decide,” said a student from the e-admission team.

The university today published advertisements stating that the last date of form fill-up for all the subjects has been extended to July 10. However, the dates remain unchanged for form fill-up for Integrated MCA, masters in finance and control, MSc in computer science and MTech in computer science continues to remain the same that is June 30. The corrected version of the advertisement is now available on the website.

While some senior academicians said it was a hasty decision to hand over the responsibility of e-admissions to a group of students, others believe that things will be better next year. “It is the first time and there will be some hiccups in between. But, we will learn from the mistakes this year. Next time, things will be better organised,” said Mishra.