GATE 2027 in Hubballi-Dharwad: One Exam City, IISc Zone and Institutes

Search the Karnataka row of the official exam-city page for Hubballi and you will not find it on its own, and the same goes for Dharwad. The entry is written exactly as Hubballi/Dharwad. It is one option on the form, not two.

That matches how the place is run. The Dharwad district administration describes Hubli as the commercial and industrial hub and Dharwad as the academic and cultural hub, with the two administered together by the Hubballi-Dharwad Municipal Corporation, the second largest municipal corporation in Karnataka after Bengaluru.

What the entry does not tell you is which side of the twin cities your centre will be on. GATE allots the centre, and the address appears only on the admit card. So a student living in Dharwad should be ready to write in Hubballi, and the other way round.

The entry sits in the IISc zone, coordinated from Bengaluru. The list is tentative: GATE may add or remove a city, and may allot one outside your six choices. GATE 2027 is held only in India.

The rule: you choose six cities, and all six must be from the same zone. For us the zone boundary runs right along the state border.

IISc zone (works with Hubballi/Dharwad)	IIT Bombay zone (does not)
Belagavi, Bagalkot, Davanagere	Goa
Ballari, Shivamogga, Kalaburagi, Bidar	Kolhapur, Sangli
Bengaluru North, Bengaluru South, Mangaluru	Solapur - Pandharpur, Pune

The district administration puts Goa about 160 km from Hubli Junction, and many of us know it better than some Karnataka towns. It is still in the IIT Bombay zone, along with all of Maharashtra, so Goa cannot go on a form that has Hubballi/Dharwad. If you will be in Goa in February, build a full IIT Bombay list instead; the Goa page explains that side.

Two smaller points. Belagavi is a separate entry from Hubballi/Dharwad, so it counts as a second choice. And Gadag and Haveri, close as they are, have no entry on the list.

Put the place you will actually be in February first, then add cities you could reach early on an exam morning. A list for a student living in Hubballi or Dharwad:

1. Hubballi/Dharwad
2. Belagavi
3. Davanagere
4. Bagalkot
5. Ballari
6. Shivamogga

The IISc zone stretches well beyond Karnataka. It also covers Kurnool and Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad and Nalgonda in Telangana, and northern Kerala entries such as Kozhikode. If you are doing an internship in Bengaluru, Bengaluru North or Bengaluru South can lead the list, as the Bengaluru page explains. Students at colleges on the coast might prefer Mangaluru, covered on the Mangaluru page. The Kurnool page shows the same zone from the Andhra side.

If you registered already, your six cities are fixed on the form. The official dates page lists the application data correction window, on candidate request and with a fee, as TBA.

Questions about the Hubballi/Dharwad exam city go to the IISc GATE office:

• IISc, Bengaluru-560 012: helpdesk.gate@iisc.ac.in, 080-22932644, 080-22932392, 080-22933333

Application questions go to the organising institute, IIT Madras, at helpdesk@gate.iitm.ac.in or 044-22578200. Write from your registered email ID and quote your enrolment ID.

GATE 2027 runs on 6 and 7 February, 13 and 14 February, and 20 and 21 February 2027. The city allotment notification is due on 4 January 2027, the admit card date is TBA, and results are due on 19 March 2027.

Once you have the admit card, find the centre and work out the route from where you will spend the night before. If you are allotted Belagavi or another district, travel the previous day. The district administration lists Hubballi Airport, which serves both cities and is about 20 km from Dharwad, and Belagavi's airport about 78 km from Dharwad. Dharwad railway station falls under the Hubli division of South Western Railway, with Hubli Junction as the other station. For two papers, the official two-paper page says the second centre may differ but will be in the same city. Carry the printed admit card and the original photo ID given in your application, and follow the admit card's list of what you may take in.

Two institutes with GATEiit pages are in Dharwad itself. IIT Dharwad has its permanent campus at Chikkamalligawad, Dharwad, and IIIT Dharwad is on Ittigatti Road, near Sattur Colony, Dharwad. Elsewhere in Karnataka, NITK Surathkal, IISc Bengaluru and IIIT Bangalore also have pages, and IIT Goa is across the border. Each page explains that institute's GATE routes for DA and CSE candidates; the full list is on /institutes.

Keep the exam city and admissions apart. Writing GATE in Hubballi/Dharwad gives no advantage at IIT Dharwad, and writing in Belagavi or Bengaluru costs you nothing anywhere.

GATEiit is an online site with no centre or office in Hubballi, Dharwad or any other city. Everything on it is free to use from home or a hostel.

Choose your paper first. GATE DA is Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, and GATE CSE is Computer Science and Information Technology; each page carries the syllabus. DA and CS are an allowed two-paper pair in GATE 2027.

Then work through previous papers on /pyq and topic sets on /practice, with the GATE DA 2027 preparation guide or the GATE CSE 2027 preparation guide as your plan. The other guides take single topics in depth, and the WhatsApp group linked from the DA or CSE paper page is where aspirants discuss questions.

All six exam days fall on weekends, so set weekend mornings aside for full timed mocks. The GATE 2027 page and the exam-city overview cover the national picture.