According to education ministry data released on Thursday, while 458,521 students had registered t sit for the JEE Mains in the first three days, only 343,958 went to give the exams. This is almost a drop-out of 25%. The JEE Mains exam will continue till 6 Sept.

Dropping out of almost 115,000 students is a significant number considering that this could close the door for students in trying to enter the best engineering schools in the country.

As per education ministry data, while the day one saw only 54.67% attendance in the exam centers by JEE aspirants, the day two saw a an attendance of 81% and day three (sept 3), it was 82%. While day one was for students seeking admission in Bachelor in Architecture and Bachelor in Planning courses, since 2nd Sept, it was for bachelor of engineering (BE) and bachelor of technology (B.Tech) courses.

At least eight states including Delhi, Maharashtra, Punjab, Odisha and West Bengal had requested the union government and some even had spoken to the Prime Minister for Postponing the exams for six to eight weeks. This is in the wake of higher number of coronavirus positive cases being reported every days in the country, and natural calamities like floods in parts of the country like in Odisha, Bihar and Assam.

Six states — Maharashtra, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Punjab, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh had approached the Supreme Court on 28 August seeking a review of its 17 August order on JEE and NEET exams. But the apex court has not yet heard their review plea even as the JEE Mains started on 1 Sept. The Supreme Court is expected to hear the review plea filed by six states on Friday.