More than ten lakh students will be appearing for Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering(GATE) 2013 which will be held on January 20.
The registration of candidates for GATE 2013, conducted by the Indian Institute of Science and seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), has gone up by 10-15 per cent this time, according to a press release from IIT-Delhi.
The test will be conducted online for 16 streams on January 20, and offline test for six streams on February 10. The results will be announced on March 15.
A total of 7,77,134 candidates registered for GATE 2012 and 6,86,614 candidates appeared for the exam. The total number of candidates qualified for GATE 2013 is 1,08,526.
The rise in the number of students appearing for GATE is accounted by various factors. This year, the women candidates have been exempted from paying the application fee and 13 public sector units(PSU) have already issued recruitment notification based on GATE 2013 score.
Moreover, the exam has also shifted towards online mode with more papers being conducted online, filling the application and getting the admit cards online.Compared to the previous years, the number of government companies accepting GATE score has increased significantly.
GATE 2011 score was used only by IOCL for recruitment. While five companies accepted GATE 2012 score, this year 13 companies have confirmed so far that GATE 2013 score will be used for job shortlisting. Companies like BHEL, NTPC, PowerGrid, MECL, HPCL, BPCL, CONCOR, MECON, IOCL, BEL, DDA and GAIL have issued recruitment notifications based on GATE 2013 scores.