The National Testing Agency (NTA) on Thursday said it will reschedule the JEE (Main) exam to be held on January 23 in West Bengal and allot an alternative examination date due to the celebration of Saraswati Puja.
In a post on X, NTA said the decision was made after receiving representations from candidates in West Bengal, where the festival is widely celebrated.
“ It has been decided that all candidates scheduled to appear for JEE (Main) in West Bengal on 23rd January 2026 shall be allotted another date of examination among the advertised dates for JEE (Main) 2026 Session 1 examination,” the agency said.
JEE Main 2026 Session 1 exam dates are scheduled from January 21 to January 29.
The online application process for Session 1 registration ran from October 31, 2025 to November 27, 2025. While official figures for this year’s applicants are still awaited, NTA typically receives over a million registrations annually for the first session.
The national-level engineering entrance test is conducted in a computer-based format and is used for admission to undergraduate engineering, architecture, and planning programmes at National Institutes of Technology (NITs), Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs), and other centrally funded technical institutions. It also serves as the qualifying examination for JEE Advanced, the gateway to Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). Session 1 results are expected to be declared in February 2026.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee welcomed the decision, saying NTA made the change following her intervention.
“Earlier GOI/ National Testing Agency had scheduled Joint Entrance Examinations on 23 January, which happens to be Netaji's birthday and Saraswati Puja, which the students are expected and habituated to celebrate with respect. This put our students into difficulty and I intervened to protest and seek a change,” she said in a post.
