Over 95% attendance recorded on first and second day of JEE-Main entrance exam: Officials

Over 95 per cent attendance has been recorded on the first and second day of the engineering entrance exam JEE-Main, officials said on Wednesday. The crucial examination, which is being conducted at 574 centres across the country, began on Tuesday.

According to National Testing Agency (NTA) officials, 95.32 per cent attendance was recorded on the first day and 96.08 per cent attendance on the second day of the exam.

The exam will also be conducted on January 27, 29, 30, 31 and February 1. Over 8.6 lakh candidates have registered for paper 1 (BE/BTech), while over 46,000 candidates have registered for paper 2 (BArch). “On first day, in both shifts, Andhra Pradesh had the maximum number of candidates (20,066) with 40 examination centres followed by Maharashtra (17,249) with 54 examination centres. Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Goa, Lakshadweep, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Puducherry had one examination centre each,” a senior NTA official said.

Similarly, on the second day, Andhra Pradesh had the maximum number of candidates (19,173) with 40 examination centres followed by Maharashtra (16,841) with 53 examination centres. Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Goa, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Puducherry, and Sikkim had one examination centre each.

The exam is being conducted in 13 languages -- English, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.

JEE-Main is conducted for admission to undergraduate engineering programmes at NITs, IIITs, other centrally funded technical institutions, and institutions or universities funded or recognised by participating state governments. It is also an eligibility test for JEE (Advanced), which is conducted for admission to IITs.