Bhubaneswar, July 4: The first phase of admissions in degree colleges came to a close today, leaving as many as 31 per cent seats vacant in 689 colleges across the state.

As of now, about 1.03 lakh students have taken admissions in the 1.5 lakh seats across five different streams — arts, commerce, physical sciences, biological sciences and self-financing vocational courses.

There are 10,596 vacancies in arts, while the number of vacancies in commerce is 3,483. The number of vacant seats is comparatively fewer in physical and biological sciences with 2,096 and 2,023 vacancies respectively. Only 303 seats have remained vacant in self-financing courses, indicating a good demand for such programmes.

In the BJB Autonomous College, a total of 91 seats have remained vacant. These include 55 seats in arts, 21 in commerce, eight in physical sciences, four in biological sciences and three in self-financing courses.

Similarly, 54 seats have remained vacant in the Ramadevi Women’s College, which include 24 seats in arts, 14 seats in commerce, five each in physical and biological sciences and six in self-financing.

“Unlike previous years, vacancies have become a common affair at the degree level this year as students these days prefer to go for professional and specialised courses which suit their interests and give them better job prospects,” said Pushpanjali Sahoo, teacher of a city college.

However, as compared to last year which witnessed more than 50,000 vacancies in degree courses, the numbers have dropped this year.

Last year, the department had to go for a second round of admissions to fill the vacant seats.

Learning from its past mistakes, the department has reintroduced the process of second selection this year so that the vacant seats can be filled up.