More girls on merit list compared to last year

More girls have made it to the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) merit list from the Bombay zone this year compared to last year.

More girls have made it to the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) merit list from the Bombay zone this year compared to last year.

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However, at 12%, the overall percentage of girls qualifying for ranks is still dismal in comparison to boys. This year 491 girls from the Bombay zone made it to the merit list as compared to 327 who made it to the merit list last year. JEE results were announced on Friday.

In total across the country, of the 1,50,431 girls who appeared for the JEE, 2,886 have secured ranks in the merit list comprising 18,468 candidates. Of the 2,886 girls, the first 1,908 will move to the next round. It is not clear how many girls from Bombay zone are eligible to do so.

While last year’s Bombay zone topper achieved an all India rank of 83, this year’s girl topper from the zone was far below at a rank of 136. “I expected to get a rank within the top 500 but I never expected to be the girl topper from the state, so that is extra special for me,” said Megha Gupta, 18, a KC College student. She said the gender disparity at the IITs was never a deterrent for her. “That was never a factor,” said Gupta.

“With a one third increase in the number of girls getting ranks this is better than last year,” said AV Mahajan, JEE 2012 chairperson at IIT-Bombay. “The larger pool of female candidates might be one reason.”