Over 16 per cent of the candidates who had applied for the Common Admission Test (CAT) for MBA courses in the IIMs and other B-schools did not take the exam, held in November.

Around 1.9 lakh of the 2.28 lakh registered candidates sat the test. Some 2.44 lakh had applied in 2019, and nearly 14 per cent had dropped out.

Two IIM teachers attributed the decline in the number of applicants and the increase in absenteeism to the Covid-19 scare and the economic crisis that has hamstrung job creation.

The 20 IIMs offer close to 5,000 MBA seats, charging between Rs 12 lakh and Rs 23 lakh for a two-year programme. Most of those who enrol have to take an education loan, which they pay back after securing jobs.

However, the job situation has been grim this year because of a contraction in the economy, the IIM teachers said.

According to private research group Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, the unemployment rate was over 9 per cent in December. India lost one-third of its white-collar jobs in four months, seeing an estimated 59 lakh white-collar jobs disappear between May and August.

The CAT 2020 results, announced on Saturday, showed nine candidates scoring an overall 100 percentile. They are all men and seven of them have an engineering/technology background while the two others have mathematics and management degrees, respectively.

Five of these nine are from the IITs and the rest from IIM Indore (IPM programme), BITS Pilani, Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology and the YMCA Institute of Engineering, a media release said.

The IIMs will now release their shortlists based on the CAT 2020 scores, group discussions, interviews and some other parameters.

More than 94 other institutions too will use the CAT 2020 scores this year to admit students to their management programmes. IIM Indore was in charge of organising CAT 2020.