1.91 lakh students appear for IIM CAT

New Delhi, Nov 19 (UNI) A record number of 1.91 lakh students appeared for the Common Admission Test (CAT) conducted across the country today by the six Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) for their flagship two-year post-graduate programmes in management.

Apart from the IIMs at Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Kolkata, Lucknow, Kozhikode and Indore, the CAT scores are also used for admission by several other management schools across the country.

With more than 30,000 aspirants, the Delhi region accounted for the highest number of candidates for CAT, considered to be one of the toughest college entrance examinations.

Chennai accounted for more than 19,000 candidates. About 6400 candidates appeared for the test in Ahmedabad.

The CAT results are expected to be out in about six weeks.

Final admissions for the 2007-09 PGP batches at the six IIMs are expected to be announced in April next year after short-listed candidates go through group discussions and personal interviews in February/March.

There was an increase of 21,000 in the overall number of candidates this year, as compared to 1.70 lakh students last year, despite the fact that the IIMs have, for the first time, prescribed a minimum of 50 per cent marks in the Bachelor's degree examination as an eligibility criterion.

This year, the duration of the test has been extended by half an hour to three hours to give the students more time to answer the questions.

Huge crowds of students and their parents and other relatives could be seen outside the examination centres in the capital and other major cities before the start of the test at 1000 hours.

The police had made elaborate security arrangements at all the examination centres.

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