Even as the controversy surrounding the JEE exam refuses to die down, interest in its big brother, GATE, or the graduate aptitude test in engineering, is steadily increasing. GATE is the qualifying exam for MTech and ME (Masters in Engineering ) for IITs, IISC-Bangalore and 750 government and private engineering colleges.

It's the second biggest technical exam in India after AIEEE, in terms of number of applicants. Around 6.8 lakh candidates applied for an estimated 50,000 seats this year. 

Coaching institutes are taking note. "We expect the number of applicants for GATE to go up to 7.5-8 lakh next year," says Aditya Reddy, co-founder and director of coaching institute GATE Forum. GATE Forum was launched in 2005 by Reddy, a graduate in mechanical engineering and a post graduate diploma holder from IIM Calcutta and his friends Abhijit Chaudhari, Chandan Kumar Jha and Jitendra Sinha.

GATE Forum has centres in 50 cities across India and Reddy says it has grown at a CAGR of 102% over the past four years. "We reported revenues of Rs 18 crore in financial year 2012, and are targeting a growth of 65% this year," he adds. 

According to Arvind Singhal, chairman of Technopak Advisors, the GATE exam translates into an excellent opportunity for coaching institutes. "The demand is significantly higher than the number of seats in the exam. There is an acute shortage of good quality seats at the undergraduate level," he says. A lot of graduates from tier-II and tier-III institutes aspire for a masters programme in the hope of learning more and for getting better placements and opt for coaching for the exam, Singhal says. 

Public sector undertakings like NTPC, IOC, and BHEL have started recruiting candidates based on the GATE score over the past two years and that has contributed significantly to the rise in demand. "Due to the slowdown, a lot of low-rung MBA colleges were unable to provide placements, so engineering graduates consider a masters in engineering or a PSU offer as safe bets," says Gautam Puri, vice chairman and cofounder CL Educate. 

CL Educate forayed into GATE coaching with GATE Aspire late last year. The company has two GATE Aspire centres in Bangalore and Delhi. The centre in Delhi will hold classes for students in Delhi and surrounding areas from August and will also broadcast these lectures through Internet to around 30 engineering colleges in Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Western UP, and Haryana. "Our primary aim is to target colleges that lack good faculty and are not easily accessible," says Puri. 

He says the coaching would be especially helpful for students in such areas as they usually drop a year or take a break of 6-8 months and move to a bigger city to prepare for the exam. "Around 70-75% of the GATE coaching market is untapped and we sense significant opportunities in this space," he adds. 
Till last year, both third year and final year engineering students were eligible for the exam, but the eligibility criteria for the exam was restricted to final-year engineering students from this year. However, that has not dampened demand. The exam, held in February every year, is conducted by IISC-Bangalore or one of the seven IITs, and has 21 different papers based on the different streams of engineering. 

TIME launched its coaching programme for GATE in September 2010, and offers classroom coaching for electronics, electrical, computers and mechanical streams in 25 centres like Hyderabad, Bangalore, Jaipur and Trichy. "We are keenly looking to service students from other areas," says Prudhvi Reddy, course director, GATE, at TIME. TIME launched an online GATE series last year. 

In a bid to expand their geographical reach, Gate Forum also launched live Internet classes, called eGATE in February this year. "These are interactive online classes facilitating a two-way interaction between the faculty and the students. These are meant for regions where we are not present physically," says Reddy. Hyderabad-based ACE Engineering Academy also forayed into the North by launching a coaching centre in Delhi around nine months back. The coaching institute has centres in Hyderabad and Vijaywada and around 25,000 students are enrolled for GATE coaching at its flagship centre in Hyderabad.