Bhubaneswar, June 15: Delay in the announcement of admissions to Plus Three colleges across the state has worried aspiring candidates and their guardians.
While the notification was supposed to be released in the last week of May, the higher education department is yet to announce the important dates for the admissions.
The Plus Two admissions have already started and the students are applying for various colleges.
There are more than 1.71 lakh seats across 706 colleges in the state.
Sources said that like previous years, the department has decided to conduct the admissions for Plus Two and Plus Three courses separately to ensure smooth operation.
Besides, the one-lakh additional seats, earlier mandated by the department, are being incorporated in the software. This is also delaying the process. For all government, non-government, autonomous, block grant and unaided colleges that have 256 students or less, there will be a 20 per cent increase in seat capacity. For colleges having more than 256 students, there will be a 10 per cent increase.
The 20 per cent seat increase will be included in the seat matrix during the online admissions.
A higher education official, however, said the entire admission process would be over before August 16 and regular classes would start from that day.
Besides, admissions for the newly formed varsities including Rama Devi University, Khallikote University in Berhampur, and Open University in Sambalpur, have also not started. The admission process for these varsities was to begin from June 12.
It has been decided that the Rama Devi University, the state's first women's varsity, will introduce five postgraduate departments - school of life science, school of gender equality, school of economics and finance, two schools for English and Odia - from the current academic session. However, the Khallikote University will continue with 17 postgraduate departments, as earlier.
The department had earlier notified that the students would apply online for admission from the official websites of these three universities.
The department has asked these varsities to appoint a registrar-in-charge, a controller of examinations and a controller of finance on temporary basis, to bring out notices and conduct the overall admission procedure for their respective varsities.
