It’s again a case of more supply than demand. Though the Department of Higher Education was upbeat this year about filling up seats in degree colleges through two selection rounds, it has grossly failed to meet its expectations.
The State has 692 Plus Three colleges with 1,49,423 seats. Till date, 1,18,617 students have been admitted to the colleges with 30,806 seats lying vacant.
In many colleges, just 50 per cent of seats or even less than that have been filled up and in Arts stream, the trend seems to be more prominent.
In Kousika Baba Plus III College at Kalahandi, just seven seats in Arts out of 64 were filled up after first and second rounds of selections. Similar is the scene at Bhairab Mahavidyalaya in Koraput where eight out of 56 seats have been filled up till now.
In Kendrapara, Birupa College has 152 seats lying vacant of 256 seats and in Sri Sri Bayababa College, 143 seats have no takers.
At Naami College of Bhadrak, 169 seats out of total 256 are vacant even after the second selection. At Nilakantheswar Mahavidyalaya of Talcher, 77 of 128 seats are vacant. Sonepur’s Ramesh Prasad Anchalik Women’s College too has managed to fill up 36 seats in Arts out of 128 and at College of Arts, Science & Technology in Sundargarh, 85 of 128 seats are empty.
In Cuttack, 82 seats in Sudarsan Mahavidyalaya, 85 in Mahanadi Vihar Women’s College and 75 in Biren Mitra Memorial Women’s College are vacant. All these three colleges have 128 seats in Arts stream.
At Kandarpur College in Cuttack district, 97 of 192 seats are lying vacant and there are no takers for 107 seats in Panchayat Prahalad College at Nischintakoili having total 256 seats. At Paradeep College in Jagatsingpur, 119 of 256 seats have been filled up. At Baruneswar Mahavidyalaya and Kharasrota Mahavidyalaya in Jajpur district, 144 and 117 seats are vacant of the total 256 each respectively.
In Commerce, there has been zero enrolment in Mahapurusa Achyutananda Mahavidyalaya at Nemala and Chandra Sekhar College in Keonjhar. At Maa Tarini Mahavidyalaya in Jajpur 60 seats of 64 and Sri Sri Dhabaleswar College at Cuttack has 41 out of 48 seats vacant. According to DHE reports, over 50 per cent of Commerce seats are vacant in some colleges in Balasore, Balangir, Cuttack, Dhenkanal, Ganjam, Jagatsinghpur, Nuapada and Sundargarh districts. If Arts stream has less takers, situation in colleges providing science education comprising Physical Science and Biological Science is no better.
While colleges like Kshetra Mohan College of Basic Science in Balasore has 61 of 64 seats in Physical Science vacant, that in Vedanta DAV Lanjigarh Science College at Bhawanipatna is worse. Here, 119 seats in Physical Science and 118 in Biological Science are vacant. Both the streams in the college have 128 seats each. At Derabish College in Kendrapara having 32 seats each in both the streams, Physical Science has no takers till now and just one seat has been filled up in Biological Science.
Sources said the main reason for the shortage of students is that most colleges have more than required number of seats to get Government grant. There are also many colleges where courses run on pen and paper only. Last year, 676 colleges had taken part in e-admission and 10,374 seats had remained vacant.