Bhubaneswar, July 8: The online process for application to degree college courses has proved to be a hit.

Figures available with the higher education department for this year suggest while over 1.78 lakh students across the state have applied online for degree colleges, the manual system attracted only 35 candidates.

On July 5, Orissa High Court had ordered that “there should be no bar for students applying for admissions through offline or manual mode”, while agreeing with a petitioner that most students in the state were not computer-savvy and that internet connection was a problem in rural and remote areas.

However, the offline system has not received the kind of response it was expected to have, at least at the Plus-Three level. “The figures (35 applications) mean there were not even two manual forms from each district,” a senior official of the department said.

From this year, the department has decided to have five streams in degree colleges – arts, commerce, physical science, biological science and self-financing. The respective honours and pass subjects will come under the five categories. Prior to this, arts, science and commerce were the available streams.

Like previous years, this time, too, the arts subjects are most popular with over 2.44 lakh applications while commerce received 46,351. Among science subjects, 96,108 students have opted for the physics-chemistry-mathematics combination or the physical science stream. The chemistry-biology-zoology or the biological science stream attracted 42,758 applications.

The newly-introduced self financing stream, which includes subjects such as information technology, bio technology, computer science, microbiology, mathematics with computer science, and electronics and telecommunications received only 4,282 applications.

With the facility of “multiple options in a single form”, the students have opted for as many as 4.33 lakh options through the 1.78 lakh applications.

The first selection list for all degree colleges will be out on July 10 and there will be no second selection procedure. The normal admission will be closed in four stages – first selection, SC/ST extension, balance seats or spot selection and admission after supplementary or instant examination. Classes for degree students are expected to begin from August 1.