Around 84,000 fewer candidates took the JEE-Main in 2021, compared to 2020, with a dip registered across candidates from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and OBC (non-creamy layer) categories, according to numbers shared by the National Testing Agency (NTA), which declared the result for the engineering entrance exam in the early hours of 15^th September.

In a statement, the NTA announced that 44 candidates across India scored 100 percentile in the exam, which was held over four sessions between February and September.

Among these 44 candidates include seven each from Delhi and Telangana, six each from Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh, and five from Maharashtra. Twenty-four candidates each had scored 100 percentile in 2020 and 2019.

The NTA said 20 candidates were found using unfair means and were debarred from appearing in JEE-Main for three years.

JEE (Main) exams are held for admission to undergraduate engineering programmes — BE/B.Tech — at NITs, IIITs, other Centrally Funded Technical Institutions (CFTIs), and certain institutions or universities recognised by some state governments.

According to the NTA, 9.39 lakh unique candidates appeared in all four sessions of JEE-Main held in February, March, July, August and September this year. In 2019 and 2020, when each candidate could take the test two times each, 11.47 lakh and 10.23 lakh candidates, respectively, had appeared. The best performance of a candidate, who has appeared in multiple sessions of the exam, is taken into account while tabulating the scores.

Data also shows that 86,000 candidates from the SC category took the exam in 2021, compared to 97,000 and 1.08 lakh in 2020 and 2019, respectively. It says 33,000 applicants from ST category appeared in the exam this year, as against 38,000 in 2020 and 43,000 in 2019.

Moreover, 3.34 lakh OBC (non creamy layer) candidates appeared in JEE Main in 2021, while the corresponding figures were 4.02 lakh in 2020 and 4.46 lakh in 2019.

However, at 4.01 lakh, the number of general category candidates who took the exam rose marginally this year compared to 3.91 lakh in 2020. In 2019, 5.05 lakh general category candidates had taken the exam, which was conducted in 925 centres across the country and abroad this year.