Decline in number of GATE applicants this year, lowest figures since 2017

New Delhi, October 15: IIT Delhi has finished the registration process for GATE 2020 and the institute received total 8.58 lakhs applications this year. Comparing the figure with last year, there is a decline of 68,970 in the number of applications received for the Graduate Aptitude Engineering Exam. In the year 2019, total 9.27 lakhs students applied for GATE. The current year’s figures are the lowest since 2017, even though the authorities added a new paper of Biomedical Engineering this year.

Recently the IITs were in the news for uniform fee structure for MTech programmes offered by IITs recommended by the Council of IITs. This move will see a 900% fee hike in M.Tech programmes. However, BR Chahar, organising chairman, GATE 2020 ruled out fee hike for M.Tech courses as one of the possible reasons for the decline in the number of applications this year.

IIT Bombay topped the zone wise registration figures with total 1,73,965 applications. IISc Bangalore was the second in the list with 1,31,287 registrations. The least number in terms of applications from each zone were from IIT Guwahati where only 52,553 applicants registered for GATE 2020.

Zone wise Registration Figures for GATE 2020

GATE 2020 will be conducted in online mode on February 1,2,8 and 9, 2020. The entrance exam will be conducted for a total of 25 papers. Candidates will be able to download the admit card of GATE 2020 from January 3, 2020. The results of the entrance exam will be declared on March 16.