Bhubaneswar, Aug. 1: Not all junior colleges are going to be busy during the first round of admissions.

While 29 colleges in the state have found less than 20 applicants, four of them have not even received a single application form and are virtually out of the Plus Two admission process.

Officials at the department of higher education said there are 35 junior colleges, including 10 run by the government, for which less than 20 candidates have been selected for admission from the first cut-off percentage list.

Of these, 11 colleges are in the capital and two others are on the outskirts of the city.

The rest of the colleges are in districts Cuttack, Balasore, Puri, Mayurbhanj, Sundergarh (including Rourkela), Jajpur, Rayagada, Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Jharsuguda, Ganjam, Gajapati, Angul, Balangir and Berhampur.

Among these 35 institutions, five with a sanctioned strength of 128 seats and two others with 64 seats will have only one candidate each for admission.

Of the government-run Plus Two institutions, the Government (Junior) Science College at Tiringi in Mayurbhanj has 128 seats in arts, science and commerce. However, only 16 out of 35 candidates who had applied to the college have been selected for the first round of admissions.

Another government college at Jirango in Gajapati district attracted just 12 application forms and one student has been asked to report for admission.

The four colleges for which not a single student has applied are Pragati Prafulla Plus Two Science College of Science, Commerce and Arts in Bhubaneswar, Vision College (Plus Two Science), Janla (Khordha), Asian College of Science and Technology in Rourkela and Steel City Science College in Jajpur. Interestingly, Pragati Prafulla Plus Two College of Science, Commerce and Arts has 128 seats in science and none in commerce or arts.

“The higher education department must review the facilities available of the colleges which are not finding favour with the students. Many private players have ventured into the education sector in the last few years and it is mostly in privately managed institutions that seats are not filled up.

“With more than 30,000 seats likely to go vacant this year, steps must be taken either to improve the condition of these colleges or shut them down,” said a lecturer of a premier college in Bhubaneswar.