The higher education department has asked universities to reopen their undergraduate admission portals for a week from December 1 because “a good number of seats are lying vacant in different general degree colleges and unitary universities’’.

An advisory on the admission portals was issued to the universities on Monday because first-year seats have remained vacant after the admission season ended in October.

The order says: “Colleges/universities where the seats are lying vacant, may reopen the UG admission portal for another 7 days for receiving the fresh application, where necessary, and complete the admission process by December 15’’.

This is the second extension of the admission season. The higher education department had earlier deferred the last date of completing admissions in undergraduate colleges from September 25 to October 30.

Education minister Partha Chatterjee had then said as many as 25 per cent of the seats had remained vacant in some of the colleges.

The situation is particularly bad in the science streams with the counseling for admission to the NITs (through the JEE-Main) and the medical colleges (through the NEET) happening late because of the Covid pandemic.

“The JEE-Main and the NEET were held in September. Many students who had taken admission in colleges left after securing admission in NITs and medical colleges,’’ said an education department official.

A vice-chancellor of a university in Calcutta said one of the reasons for seats remaining vacant was that a good number of students from districts refused to enrol on city colleges because of multiple factors amid the pandemic.

“These students are not sure whether it would be advisable to shift to Calcutta for on-campus classes, considering that the pandemic is still raging. They are worried over where they would end up if they contract Covid away from near and dear ones. Many of them are preferring to enrol on a college closer home,” the VC said.

Another VC said students from districts were wary of coming to Calcutta because there was no guarantee when hostels, closed in March because of the pandemic, would reopen.

“Even if in-person classes resume, we are against reopening hostels because it would be very difficult to monitor whether the students are adhering to the safety protocols,’’ said the VC.

An official of Jadavpur University said they had held several rounds of admissions for BSc courses this year, something that was inconceivable earlier.