Bhubaneswar, June 12: The last date of application for admission into all degree colleges, including self-financing institutions, has been extended from June 15 to June 18. This step has been taken by the higher education authorities following high court’s order to facilitate offline application along with online form fill-up.

“As per the court’s order, the option of filling up forms manually will also be open to students. They can download the common application forms from the department website (www.dheorissa.in) or avail the same from their preferred colleges free of cost. We have sent instructions to the principals of all degree and autonomous colleges in this regard,” said higher education secretary in-charge Chandra Sekhar Kumar.

The modified schedule says the last date for getting the forms from college counters and submitting the same is June 18 up to 5pm.

Those applying online can do so till midnight of that date and then submit it at any of the 382 Student Academic Management System (Sams) resource centres in the state.

So far, the number of e-applications for Plus Three had reached 1,52,942 while 81258 forms had been submitted at the Sams resource centres, said Shankar, Sams coordinator and in-charge of the admission helpline (155335).

“We are answering around 1,500 to 1,700 calls everyday from applicants about the form fill-up process. The most common problem they are facing is that they are getting a blank print out despite filling in all details on the online form. We want to inform them that they should use only Internet Explorer and not any other browser for the form fill-up,” he said.

The selection (merit) list would be published on June 30 and the admissions would be conducted between July 5 and 9. From this year, there will be no second selection procedure in both junior and degree colleges. The admission process would be closed in four stages – first selection, SC/ST extension, spot selection and supplementary admissions.

The higher education authorities have also decided to do away with intimation letters through speed post and instead send them via text messages and e-mails. Those with no mobile phones will be intimated on the number of the nearest contact person.

Apart from this, there will be five streams for the degree colleges for the first time. Students can opt for arts, physical science, biological science, commerce and self-financing subjects. All honours and pass subjects will come under these five categories.

Honours subjects, including information technology, biotechnology, computer science, electronics and telecommunications, would be included in the self-financing subjects stream.

Chemistry has been categorised under the physical science stream.

Classes for first year is scheduled to commence from July 18.