The Common Admission Test 2005 for admission into the six prestigious Indian Institutes of Management and 75 other B-Schools for the academic session beginning June 2006 was held today.
It was conducted at 160 centres and 24 cities across the country. The results will be declared in the first half of January.
"The tests have gone off smoothly at all the venues," said Bakul Dholakia, director, IIM-Ahmedabad.
"About 1.70 lakh applicants had applied for CAT this year, which is 12 percent more than the 1.52 lakh that appeared in November 2004. About 5,400 candidates wrote their papers at 10 centres in Ahmedabad alone," he added.
Although the final figures have yet to come from other centres, he arrived at these figures on the basis of the assumption that the absentee rate among candidates for CAT is about 8-9 percent.
The personal interviews of successful candidates would be conducted from mid-February to March-end, he said, adding that details would be made available on IIM-Ahmedabad's Web site in due course.
When asked about the reduction in the number of questions asked in CAT, he said, "I have not seen the paper. Last year, they had experimented with the format. That was useful. This year again, I believe they might have done so. Setting the paper and experimentation related to it is the preogative of the CAT group."
The test is for finally selecting about 1,350 students in the six IIMs for the Post-Graduate Programme, equivalent to a Masters in Business Administration.
The six IIMs are located in Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Bangalore, Lucknow, Indore and Kozhikode.
There is no plan to increase the student intake at IIM-A -- at present, it is 250 -- but Indore and Kozhikode might increase their numbers, he said.
Referring to the CAT 2003 question paper leak on the eve of test on November 23, Dr Dholakia said: ''It is time people forget the case. 'The very fact that the IIMs have successfully conducted three more CAT tests in February 2004 (re-test), November 2004 and November 2005 -- is it not enough to restore the sanctity and security aspects of the test?''
When asked as to what happened to the CBI investigation initiated into the case two years ago, he said: ''We have not heard from them ever since. As per IIM's own investigation, the source of the leak was found to be the printing press and that press has been changed.''
To the question of outsourcing CAT, Dr Dholakia said the issue has been discussed but the CAT committe has decided against outsourcing.
Dholakia said the six IIMs which conduct CAT "were still working" towards conducting the test online.
"We have not achieved the kind of progress on this as we would have liked," he added.
He did not comment on questions about the ongoing talks to introduce reservation of seats on the basis of religion for the minorities in the Indian Institutes of Technology and the IIMs.
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