Bhubaneswar, May 11: The higher education department is set to launch a mobile application to assist students during Plus Two admissions.

"The SAMS mobile application for android mobile phones is being developed by Odisha Computer Application Centre (OCAC) and will be available shortly. It will come handy for a lot of students," said a senior official of the department. The app will have information related to at least 1,470 junior colleges and will help students to know about their form status, college information and seat vacancies.

This will be first time the state government is trying to use a mobile application for admission related activities.

"Students can download the app from Google Playstore once it is available," said the official, adding that the e-admission process will start from the last week of May.

Students, however, cited a different problem. "Most students who study in Plus Two colleges are from middle class and hardly have a smart phone. So, this will not benefit us," said Sparsh, a student.

He said students who are from well-off families are mostly enrolled in CBSE or ICSE schools and would not need the application.

Higher education minister Pradeep Panigrahy said the date of application for admission to junior colleges would be notified in the last week of May and the students would get 15 days from the date of notification to apply. Last year, the date was announced on May 26.

This year, online admissions will be held for arts, science and commerce streams in 1,470 junior colleges with the total seat strength of 3,50,612. The students can apply online for admission through www.dheodisha.in, the higher education department website.

While there are 1,98,234 seats in the arts stream, science has 1,16,026 seats and commerce, 36,352. As many as 523 Student Academic Management System (SAMS) resource centres will be set up across the state to help the students with the e-admission process. Like last year, there will be two selection lists besides spot admission.

This year, 4,64,373 students have cleared the matriculation exam. The notification regarding e-admissions is generally brought out during the first week of February. However it was delayed this year. Officials dealing with the technological aspects of e-admission apprehended that the delay could lead to problems.

"The department might decide to add more colleges and seats and this will mean making changes in the software and the exhisting database, which is a difficult task," said an official.