Students queue up to submit admission forms at a college in Bhubaneswar. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, June 19: Reintroduction of manual admission in degree colleges has apparently failed its purpose as the offline system has found few takers.

The majority of students have continued to opt for online admission. As many as 2,10,838 online applications have been filed for a total of 1,41,063 degree seats. Of these, 1,63,584 students have submitted the online applied common application form (CAF) at the 382 SAMS (student academic management system) resource centres across the state. A total of 1,22,132 passed the Plus Two exams this year.

The difference between the applications filed and those submitted at the resource centre was because of students filling up multiple forms at a time, said an official.

The department of higher education, which had planned to go with e-admission for all the 661 degree and autonomous colleges of the state, had to change its decision after Orissa High Court’s interim order on June 4 stating that “there should be no bar for students applying for admissions through offline or manual mode”.

“Not many students have opted for the manual process. We have asked various centres to maintain a register with details of the students, who opt for the manual procedure. Although the exact numbers are yet to reach us, the response appears to be poor,” said a senior official of the higher education department.

However, the department is taking all steps to ensure that students wanting to go for offline admission face no problems.

To facilitate the process, the last date for admission was extended from June 15 to June 18.

“In fact, we had kept the Internet facility centres and CAF receiving counters at the resource centres open during June 14 and 15 (state government holidays for Raja),”said the official.

The department also issued fresh letters to all degree and autonomous colleges clarifying the “partially modified” procedure, so that there is no confusion.

According to the new format, principals of degree colleges can download the blank CAF for Plus Three made available on the department's website, (www.dheorissa.in). These can be handed over to the students, who wish to apply offline.

The students, after filling the form will have to take it manually to the nearest resource centre to deposit it with the required documents and fees.

This applications will be deposited with the resource centre and a register will be maintained of such offline applicants that will subsequently be sent to the department by June 19 for record and follow up.

The help desk will get the form digitised at the Internet facility centre. A copy of the form will be given to the applicant later.

The process of admission in degree colleges started from June 1 for the 2012-13 academic session. Looking at the lukewarm response, the high court on Monday once again extended the last date for the form fill-ups to June 25. This was done to facilitate students, who were to take the benefits of the offline procedure because of the three days of Raja holidays during the period.