NEW DELHI: The National Testing Agency (NTA) on Thursday said it will reschedule the JEE (Main) exam to be held on January 23 in West Bengal and allot an alternative examination date due to the celebration of Saraswati Puja.
NTA said the decision was made after receiving representations from candidates in West Bengal, where the festival is widely celebrated. (Photo:NTA)
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In a post on X, NTA said the decision was made after receiving representations from candidates in West Bengal, where the festival is widely celebrated.
“...It has been decided that all candidates scheduled to appear for JEE (Main) in West Bengal on 23 rd January 2026 shall be allotted another date of examination among the advertised dates for JEE (Main) 2026 Session 1 examination,” the agency said.
JEE Main 2026 Session 1 exam dates are scheduled from January 21 to January 29.
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The online application process for Session 1 registration ran from October 31, 2025 to November 27, 2025. While official figures for this year’s applicants are still awaited, NTA typically receives over a million registrations annually for the first session.
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The online application process for Session 1 registration ran from October 31, 2025 to November 27, 2025. While official figures for this year’s applicants are still awaited, NTA typically receives over a million registrations annually for the first session.
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The national-level engineering entrance test is conducted in a computer-based format and is used for admission to undergraduate engineering, architecture, and planning programmes at National Institutes of Technology (NITs), Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs), and other centrally funded technical institutions. It also serves as the qualifying examination for JEE Advanced, the gateway to Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). Session 1 results are expected to be declared in February 2026.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee welcomed the decision, saying NTA made the change following her intervention.
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“Earlier GOI/ National Testing Agency had scheduled Joint Entrance Examinations on 23 January, which happens to be Netaji's birthday and Saraswati Puja, which the students are expected and habituated to celebrate with respect. This put our students into difficulty and I intervened to protest and seek a change,” she said in a post.
Sanjay Maurya is a Principal Correspondent with Hindustan Times, where he covers education, with a focus on school and higher education, competitive examinations, education policy and governance. Working as part of the National Bureau, he is based in New Delhi and reports on the Ministry of Education and covers various statutory bodies like UGC, AICTE and NCTE and autonomous bodies like CBSE and NCERT. His reporting also tracks the implementation of key government reforms and policies from school education to higher education including in IITs, NITs, IIMs, central and state universities, and their impact on students and educational institutions. His reporting on the irregularities and rushed implementation of CBSE's On-Screen Marking (OSM) system for evaluation of Class 12 board exams 2026, triggered administrative action, leading to the transfer of the board's two senior-most officials and the constitution of a committee to probe alleged irregularities in procurement process of the system. He joined Hindustan Times in December 2024. Prior to that, he had a three-year stint at Careers360, where he reported on school and higher education, entrance examinations, admissions, rankings and various education policies involving universities and professional education bodies. Over the years, Maurya has reported extensively on major developments in India's education sector, including the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, reforms in the National Testing Agency (NTA) following the NEET-UG 2024 controversy, changes in school education, higher education regulation, and the evolution of entrance examinations such as NEET, JEE and CUET. He regularly produces data-driven and explanatory stories based on government documents, parliamentary proceedings, court records and official data. His focus remains on helping readers understand how education policies and institutional decisions affect millions of students, teachers and educational institutions across the country.
