Mumbai: Come November 2009 and aspirants appearing for Common Admission Test can look forward to doing away with paper work as CAT, one of the country's prestigious entrance exams is all set to go online from 2009.

The decision will impact thousands of students who each year appears for the highly competitive entrance exam at centers across the country in the ambition of making it to the hallowed corridors of IIMs.

Speaking on the new initiative, Asish Bhattacharyya, admissions chairperson at IIM Calcutta, said that an online system would "help us handle the huge number of students appearing for the test every year. Last year the number crossed 2.3 lakh". This number is only expected to increase with projections of three lakh-plus in 2009.

Once the new system would be in place, not all students will be able to take the exam on the same day as is the system applicable now. The exam would then take place in phases with 'spread out batches' within a period of a few months. The other change will be that instead of the current single exam paper, the online test will carry quite a few different papers of the same level of difficulty.

"With the online test, CAT will be similar to the GMAT test in its process. This will be definitely beneficial for the students as they can appear in the exam according to their suitability rather than a particular day", says, Dr S P Parashar, Director, IIM-Indore.

The online CAT exam will be conducted on the pattern of similar international exams like GMAT (Graduate Management Aptitude Test), with the only exception that the results will not be declared instantly.