5.2 lakh to appear for IIT-JEE
Published: 06th April 2012 03:07 AM | Last Updated: 16th May 2012 07:21 PM | A+A A-
HYDERABAD: About 5.2 lakh students from across the country, compared to last year’s 4.86 lakh, are competing for over 10,000 engineering seats in the 15 IITs and a few other top technology universities, by appearing for the IIT-JEE examination to be held on April 8. The largest number of applications are from Kanpur, followed by Andhra Pradesh.
If the proposed Iseet (Indian Science Engineering Eligibility Test) materialises by next year, this would be the last IIT-JEE entrance test. The Central government has proposed to introduce Iseet replacing IIT-JEE and AIEEE from next year. A joint entrance examination was first held in 1960.
Over 600 additional engineering seats will be added to the existing 9,600 this year. Of the 600 new seats, about 200 are at IIT-Hyderabad. From Andhra Pradesh, 50,000 aspirants have applied for IIT-JEE.
The examination will be held at seven centres--Hyderabad, Warangal, Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, Tirupati, Guntur and Nellore. The first part of the test will be held from 9 am to 12 pm and the second from 2 pm to 5 pm.
To encourage girl students, the IITs have collected no fee from them for the first time. There has been a 25 percent increase in the number of girl candidates who have applied for IIT-JEE this year, compared to last year. This is cited as a result of the decision to introduce free online application system for IIT-JEE for girls.
From this year, students will have to answer the test on an OMR sheet using a ball point pen. Till last year, the candidates used pencil.