The state joint entrance examination (JEE) 2009, scheduled to start from April 19, will see a "record turnout" of more than 40,000 students from outside Bengal. Most of them are from Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
The enrolment of the 40,000 students from other states has taken the total number of examinees to 1.1 lakh — "another record" — who will vie for around 21,000 seats in 66-odd engineering colleges across Bengal.
"This is indeed an overwhelming response… Never in the past have so many students from other states enrolled for the JEE," said Siddhartha Dutta, the chairman of the West Bengal Board of Joint Entrance Examinations.
Board officials attribute the rise in the number of "outstation" students to a number of factors, including the law-and-order situation in the state and the lifting of the age bar on examinees.
"A lot of students from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand used to go to southern states to study engineering. But the recent attacks on north Indians in Maharashtra have prompted a rethink among parents, who are now wary of sending their children down south," said an official. "Bengal, compared with other states, is safe. The cost of living, too, is low here."
The official, however, admitted that employment opportunities in Bengal are not a patch on what is on offer in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. "But the course structure in our colleges have improved a lot over the past few years and employers are aware of this," he added.
The number of JEE examinees from outside Bengal had touched 35,000 in 2006, when the board set up examination centres in Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai and Guwahati.
"The outstation examinees were not required to come down to Calcutta to write the tests," pointed out an official. Following complaints of malpractice at outstation examination centres, the board had in 2008 scrapped the system of holding the JEE outside Bengal, resulting in a drop in the number of candidates from across the country. Last year, around 18,000 examinees from other states took the test at centres in Calcutta.
Another factor that might have led to the higher turnout this time is the withdrawal of the age bar. Earlier, candidates were required to be within 24 years of age. Now, candidates of any age can sit for the test.
"Among the outstation candidates this year, a few are from Orissa, Assam and some southern states," Dutta said.
Most examinees coming from other states have opted to write the test in Calcutta. A number of centres will be also be set up in Howrah and the northern and southern fringes for the "outstation" students.
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