Ramya Narayanaswamy(AIR 35, girls’ topper), Vaddela Ashrut(AIR 17).

HYDERABAD: It was double cheer for Telangana and Andhra Pradesh this year at the Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced).

The twin states put together had the highest number of rankers with 7,505 of them qualifying, and the success tally also nearly doubled.

Telangana and Andhra Pradesh together has higher number of qualifiers, ahead of UP's 7,202 rankers. Also, the all India topper among girls is from Hyderabad Ramya Narayanaswamy of Madhapur with a rank of 35.

The results of the JEE (Advanced), which was held on May 21, were released on Sunday. The two states though did not have a single candidate in the top 10, with the best being 17th All India Rank (AIR) achieved by Vaddela Ashrut of Hyderabad.Last year, five students from the two states had figured in the top 10 with the best being AIR 3.

As per statistics provided by IIT Madras, which was the nodal institute to conduct the exam this year, out of 50,455 candidates who qualified from across the country, 3,765 hail from Andhra Pradesh and 3,740 from Telangana. Last year, the two states together had 3,965 qualifiers. Among other achievers, Rohan Abhishek secured AIR 3 in Scheduled Caste category, Ninavathi Niranjan Naik from Kurnool bagged the top rank in Scheduled Tribe with disabilities and Kota Lalith Aditya secured AIR 7 in physically handicapped category.

This year, in the top 10 list, three candidates belonged to Delhi and Roorkee zone respectively, two from Mumbai and one each from Chennai and Kanpur.

The number of students who appeared for the examination in the state also saw a rise this year, with Telangana registering 12,494 candidates appearing against last year's 11,042. Andhra Pradesh witnessed a 45 per cent rise in number of candidates who took the exam with 12,897 appearing this year as against 7,163 last year.“The number of students making the cut has only increased over the years due to growing interest among students.

Despite the test getting to ugher every year, students have been preparing themselves for the challenges,“ said Dr BS Rao, founder and chairman of Sri Chaitanya Educational Institutes.

In the IIT-Madras zone, 68 per cent of the 10,981 candidates who qualified were from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Of top 500 candidates in the IIT-Madras zone, nearly 100 were from the two states, majority of them trained in Sri Chaitanya Narayana IIT Academy. Similarly, out of 29 students who made it to the top 100 list from IIT-Madras zone, 11 are from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

