Bhubaneswar, April 7: Around 19,500 students today appeared for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE)-Main at 34 centres across Rourkela, the only offline centre in the state.
“This year, the number of candidates from the state has gone up by 3,000,” said Sidharth Ratha, principal of DPS-Rourkela, which was the nodal agency for the test conducted by CBSE. The online test will be held between April 8 and 30.
Most students said the questions were not too difficult but postponing the physics and chemistry papers of the Plus Two exams towards the end of March had affected their preparations. “It went well but I could have done much better if I had more time to prepare,” said Priyadarshini Behera, an aspirant.
The test, formerly known as the All-India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE), is conducted for admission to National Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Information Technology, Delhi Technological University, and other centrally funded technical institutes.
Large contingents of police had been deployed keeping in view the huge inflow of aspirants and their parents into the city today. “We deployed 13 platoons of police, including four deputy superintendent of police and 14 inspectors for the purpose. We will remain vigilant until 8pm. By evening, we expect the crowd to thin,” said Rourkela sub-divisional police officer Sudarshan Sethi.
Several social organisations, such as the Marwari Yubak Sangh, sold water pouches and food packets at nominal rates to ensure the comfort of students on a hot Sunday. Besides these groups, the student wing of BJD, BPUT Students’ Association and Biju Patnaik Students’ Association opened help desks at Rourkela railway station and other key spots to provide information about the examination centres and accommodation facilities.
About 14 lakh candidates today appeared for the offline entrance exam nationwide. Of them, the best 1.5 lakh students will qualify for JEE (Advanced), which replaces IIT-JEE, and will be conducted by the IITs on June 2. It will be a three-hour test with two objective type papers, each consisting questions from physics, chemistry and mathematics.
The ranks will be awarded by combining the scores of JEE-Main and Class XII or Plus Two board on a 60:40 basis.
