GATE 2012: Bombay zone has few who qualified

The ‘Bombay zone’ has the second lowest number of candidates to have qualified for the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) of eight zones across the country.

The ‘Bombay zone’ has the second lowest number of candidates to have qualified for the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) of eight zones across the country.

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GATE is for entry into the MTech and PhD programmes at the Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore), and other engineering colleges.

GATE results were declared on Thursday morning. Of the 92,000 candidates who appeared for the exam in 2012 from the Bombay zone, 12,287 have qualified. The Bombay zone (which covers Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa) has a qualifying percentage of 13.2%, slightly lower than last year’s 13.6%. The Delhi zone had the highest number of candidates qualifying this year at 18,927, with the Madras zone second with 17,343. “It is surprising that the Bombay zone is among the lower performing zones,” said Narayan Rangaraj, chairman, GATE 2012 at IIT-Bombay.

He said each exam paper had a different qualifying score and it was possible that Bombay zone candidates had opted for tougher papers. Candidates appear in 21 exams that come under GATE.

Around 6.86 lakh candidates wrote the test across the country this year with 1,08,526 candidates qualifying overall.

Qualified candidates can now use their scores to apply to masters’ programmes; qualifying in the exam doesn’t automatically guarantee admission. Around 15,000 seats are available in different MTech and PhD programmes at the IITs alone through GATE.