Plus Two admission process on at Ramadevi College in Bhubaneswar. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, July 21: The vacant seat scenario has returned to haunt Plus Two colleges. Nearly 87,962 seats remained vacant as admissions for the second selection ended here today.

The number of vacant seats in junior colleges has increased by 58, 258 as compared to last year when the total number of vacant seats were only 29,704.

This year, 3,37,658 seats were available for admissions in 1,431 colleges across the state. While 2,34,056 students took admissions during the first selection, 24,188 students were admitted in the second lot.

Although, 31 junior colleges were added to the e-admission list this year, the number of seats dropped from 3,50,460 last year to 3, 37,658 this year.

The drop in count happened as the number of seats in 50 colleges was slashed as they had no admissions for the past few sessions or were not properly recognised, said a senior official of the higher education department.

As the second selection admission is over, the higher education department now hopes that good colleges will be able to fill up some of its seats with willing SC/ST and later under the balance seat admission option.

This year, after two rounds of admissions, seats have remained vacant even in premier colleges such as the BJB Junior College, Ramadevi College and Ravenshaw Junior College.

While the BJB College has 50 vacant seats in arts, 30 in science and 13 in commerce, the Ramadevi College has 80 vacant seats in arts, 63 in science and 46 in commerce. The corresponding vacancy figures at Ravenshaw Junior College are 58 in arts, 28 in science and 30 in commerce.

The state government has, however, decided to increase the intake capacity of colleges where the number of applicants is much higher than the admission strength.

“We have asked the colleges to send a proposal to increase their intake capacity in streams where the number of applicants is too high compared to the admission strength,¡±a senior official of the department said.

While second admission process is over in Plus Two colleges, the first phase has been completed in Plus Three colleges.

The second selection process will, however, be over on Tuesday.

More than one lakh students took admission in the first round, which had ended on Thursday. In all, 1.36 lakh students were selected for admission in the 705 degree colleges in the state having an intake capacity of 1.51 lakh.The new sessions for both Plus Two and Plus Three will commence from the first week of August.