Nearly 1.3 lakh seats in Odisha's state degree colleges are lying vacant even after three rounds of admission, states a report in The New Indian Express.

The academic sessions for these state colleges had already begun on August 21 and classes have started.

What does the data say?

According to the data released by the Students Academic Management System (SAMS), 1,35,767 seats are vacant across the departments of Arts, Commerce, Physical Science and Biological Sciences, besides self-financing and Sanskrit streams in 1,040 degree colleges.

The total strength of these colleges can be ascertained to be about 2.7 lakh, but according to the statistics, only 1.34 lakh students have taken admission so far.

For the new academic session of 2023-24, the Department of Higher Education had allowed e-admission to 2,086 seats in self-financing colleges. But only 1,176 students have taken admission to these seats, leaving 910 seats without any new admittees.

For the physical sciences department, the SAMS report stated that out of 45, 987 seats in the stream, 29,559 are lying vacant which implies that more than 50 per cent of the seats are unfilled.

The officials of the concerned department informed that one more round of admission will be held, which will continue till August 28. The actual vacancy will be known after the last round of admissions are held.

For this academic year, approximately 2.23 lakh students had applied for online admissions.