At a press conference, the chairman of Joint Entrance Examination Board, Prof Siddharth Dutta, said “The number of candidates appearing in the examination this year is 76,450. At present the engineering colleges in the state accommodate about 17,000 students and the number is expected to rise by 3000-4000 with 14 new colleges coming up.” Last year about 1,10,000 students appeared in the examination.

The government’s decision to do away with the outstation centres is one of the main reasons of decrease in the number of candidates, feel JEE board members.

This year the examination will be conducted at 193 centres, which include 190 centres in the state and three in Tripura. Another reason is that the upper age limit of candidates appearing for the examination has been fixed at 24 years, said Dutta.

The examination is scheduled in three slots each for two hours. The examination of biological sciences and mathematical sciences will be of 100 marks and one paper for physics and chemistry together of 100 marks. A merit list for engineering colleges will be decided on the basis of 200 marks in the mathematics and physics and chemistry and the merit list of medical college will be decided on the 200 marks of biological science and physics and chemistry.

The examination will have both subjective and objective questions. 80 per cent questions will be objective while 20 per cent will be subjective. The candidates will be allowed to carry the question papers of the multiple-choice questions this time.

Because of the cases of imposter candidates exposed recently, the examination board has introduced some measures. The candidates will be given 15 minutes extra time to fill in details. A CD with the details of all the candidates will be circulated at each examination center so that in case of confusion about the identity of a candidate, the authorities will tally it with the information they already have.