India / JEE Main 2020 result announced, 24 students score 100 percentile

New Delhi: The unusually long wait is finally over for the 10.23 lakh students who wrote the JEE Main examination for B.E and B.Tech admissions this year. The Common Rank List cut-off score for eligibility to attempt the JEE Advanced 2020 examination was 90.37, the National Testing Agency declared in the early hours of Saturday.

In a year when the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the second round of the engineering entrance test by five months, eight students from Telangana were among the 24 students who topped the examination with a 100 percentile score, along with five candidates from Delhi and four from Rajasthan.

Only one girl student, Chukka Tanuja from Telangana, was among the toppers. Anant Vohra scored 99.84 percentile to become the topper among students with disabilities.

Students can check their scores as well as the final answer keys at jeemain.nta.nic.in.

JEE Main is used as an entrance test for admission to undergraduate engineering courses at the National Institutes of Technology, and a number of other central, state and private institutions. Those ranked among the  2.5 lakh candidates are also eligible to appear for JEE Advanced, which is the admission test for the elite Indian Institutes of Technology. It will be held on September 27.

This year’s Common Rank List cut-off of 90.37 is slightly higher than last year’s cut-off of 89.75. For students from economically weaker sections, the cut-off is a score of 70.24; for those from Other Backward Classes, it is 72.88; for those in the Scheduled Caste category, it is 50.17; and for those from Scheduled Tribe communities, it is 39.06. Cut-offs for all these categories are slightly lower than last year.

The computer-based examination is held twice a year, and students are allowed to attempt it both times and then select their best score. Almost 8.7 lakh students wrote the first round of the examination in January, and 8.41 lakh registered to write it in April. Due to the pandemic, the second examination was postponed till September, and more than a quarter of those registered students did not appear for the examination. In total, 10.23 lakh students wrote the examination, with 4.81 lakh choosing to appear both in January and September. Almost 70% of candidates were boys.

A section of students and parents had demanded a further postponement beyond September, pointing to the steep rise in COVID-19 cases as well as difficulties in transportation caused by local lockdowns. Despite widespread social media protests, letters from several State governments and multiple court cases to postpone the examinations, the second session of JEE Main was held last week.

The NTA said sufficient arrangements had been made to disinfect seating areas between shifts of students, provide fresh masks and sanitiser, check body temperatures with thermal guns and isolate students with fever in separate rooms. State governments were asked to help in facilitating travel arrangements for candidates.