The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will continue to send admit cards till March 31, for the test to be held on April 26.

Mithun Gaikwad, a student from Dehu Road, an AIEEE aspirant, said, “I try and keep myself updated with any news of AIEEE through newspapers. However, I am not convinced that the government has taken enough steps to make sure students do not get exam centres outside the state.” Varsha M, another student living in Aundh, raised similar doubts. “I am keeping my fingers crossed about the examination centre and trying to concentrate on my studies. I will be relieved only when I receive my admit card specifying the exam centre, hopefully within the state,” she said.

Last year, around 33,000 students, out of the 96,000 who appeared for AIEEE from Maharashtra, were allotted examination centres like Lakshadweep, Pondicherry, Bhopal and Surat.

But this year there is no reason to worry about that, said S K Mahajan, the officiating director of the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE).

“CBSE officials had asked us to dedicate more institutions to conduct the examination in each of the seven cities — Pune, Amravati, Aurangabad, Nagpur, Mumbai, Nashik and Thane. We have given a list of these extra centres to CBSE according to the requirement,” he said. Mahajan, however, failed to provide the exact number of extra centres that were conveyed to the CBSE officials.

There are about 1.24 lakh students appearing for AIEEE from the state, of which about 25,000 are from Pune. According to Kedar Takalkar, president of the Vidya Samata Manch — a voluntary organisation in the field of education— an RTI reply furnished by the CBSE last month said around 10 per cent students from Maharashtra might be allotted exam centres outside the state.

“However, some students give another state as their fourth preference of exam centre because they have relatives in that state. Such students will be preferably allotted centres outside Maharashtra,” Takalkar said.