New Delhi: With the global economic crunch swelling across the world, there are fewer takers for Common Admission Test (CAT) this year. Due to a poor placement scenario across the campuses in the last academic session, the number of CAT applicants has declined this year.

Over the years, CAT, the entrance test for admission to various reputed B-Schools like the Indian Institute of Managements (IIMs), has registered a steady 15-20% increase in the number of applicants.

The number of students taking the test this year is going to be much lower, with the registrations dipping from 2.76 lakh in 2008 to 2.41 lakh. The current year expects a lower turn out when an all time high of 2.46 lakh aspirants took the exam last year.


Even as the last date of registration for CAT was extended by ten days due to a series of bank holidays in September, a total of 246,912 online vouchers were sold this year.

The sale of prospectus jumped from 2.3 lakh in 2007 to approximately 2.85 lakh in the year 2008.

After the extension, the sale of vouchers and online registration commenced on September 9 and continued until October 11.

Satish Deodhar, Convener of CAT 2009 said that, "The economic slowdown was felt by many candidates on their salaries and employment. We also went online and requested the candidates to log on to the IIM websites to check their eligibility status, choose the program they are interested in and then buy the CAT vouchers."

Satisfied by the online registration process Mr. Deodhar further commented on the status of application, "Thousands of applications got rejected due to incomplete information last year. However, the situation has drastically changed this year with no rejections on the grounds of incomplete information and availability of online edit facility."

For the first time, out of the total registrations this year, 763 candidates belong to the handicapped category of which 117 are deemed to avail special facilities such as magnification of glasses and abacus.

Although the overall registration declined this year but there has been an increase in the number of female candidates from 54,000 in 2008 to 62,811 this year.

The test that is scheduled between November 28 and December 7 would involve 32 cities across India through 105 secure computer-based testing centres specially prepared for the examination.