Davanagere, Hubballi, Mysuru and Udupi districts are now among the places in Karnataka where aspiring doctors can take the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test.
The Central Board of Secondary Education announced on Friday it was increasing the number of exam centres in Karnataka and other states.
Only Bengaluru, Belagavi, Kalaburagi, and Mangaluru districts had earlier been chosen to conduct NEET in Karnataka this year.
With the decision to increase centres, NEET will now be held in eight districts of Karnataka.
On the NEET website, students can choose where they want to take the exam, according to a notification issued by the CBSE on Friday.
Candidates can revise cities chosen earlier. Once students have chosen their cities, the CBSE will take into account the total number of candidates and allot centres.
The CBSE had earlier finalised 80 cities to hold the nationwide test on May 7.
It has now increased the number to 103, in view of a 41.42% increase in the number of students registering for the test.
Minister of Human Resources Prakash Javadekar prompted the increase of 23 new examination cities, the CBSE said.
Last year, 8,02,594 candidates had registered for the test. This year, the number is 11,35,104. This is the highest number for NEET so far.
To accommodate 11.35 lakh candidates in 103 cities, 2,200 institutions will be made examination centres, CBSE said.
Javadekar said the increase in the number of candidates is an indication that the nationwide test has been appreciated by aspiring doctors. “The examination got a better response.
Therefore, we have increased the number of city centres,” he told reporters. The 23 new examination cities include Guntur and Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh; Anand, Bhavnagar and Gandhi Nagar in Gujarat; Kannur and Thrissur in Kerala; Ahmednagar, Amravati, Kolhapur and Satara in Maharashtra; Amritsar in Punjab; Jodhpur in Rajasthan; Namakkal and Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu; Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh; and Howrah in West Bengal.
Online change
Students have time till March 27 to change their exam centre on the website: http://cbseneet.nic.in
