GATE 2027 in Kolhapur: Exam City, IIT Bombay Zone and the Belagavi Trap

The official GATE 2027 exam-city page has Kolhapur as a plain single entry, "Kolhapur", among the 22 Maharashtra cities under IIT Bombay. The list has no separate entry for Ichalkaranji or any other town in the district, so if you live anywhere around here, "Kolhapur" is your home option. The name tells you the city, not the centre. The admit card gives the address.

The rules that apply to everyone:

• You choose six cities, and all six must come from one zone.
• The list is tentative. GATE may add or remove a city, and may allot a city that is not among your six.
• GATE 2027 is held only in India, so if you are working abroad you have to come back for it.

Registration, including the special window, closed in October 2026, so the six cities on your form are already set. The important dates page still shows the paid data-correction window as TBA.

Belagavi is the obvious neighbour to the south, and the Kolhapur district's how-to-reach page itself mentions Belgaum airport at 125 km and MSRTC buses running south to Belgaum. On the GATE list, though, Belagavi is a Karnataka city, and every Karnataka city is in the IISc zone.

City	Zone on the GATE 2027 list	Can it sit with Kolhapur?
Sangli, Satara, Ratnagiri	IIT Bombay	Yes
Goa	IIT Bombay	Yes
Pune, Baramati, Solapur - Pandharpur	IIT Bombay	Yes
Belagavi	IISc	No
Hubballi/Dharwad, Bagalkot	IISc	No

Mix one of the IISc cities into a Kolhapur list and the form breaks the same-zone rule. If you study in Belagavi or Dharwad and want to write there, the whole form becomes an IISc list, with no Kolhapur on it. The Hubballi-Dharwad page covers that side of the border.

Western Maharashtra gives you plenty of same-zone cities within reach. One sensible list:

1. Kolhapur
2. Sangli
3. Satara
4. Ratnagiri
5. Goa
6. Pune

Reorder it by where you could actually sleep the night before. If you study in Pune and only come home for holidays, Pune can go first. Students from the Sindhudurg side, which has no exam city of its own, might rank Ratnagiri or Goa higher. The Pune page, the Goa page and the Mumbai page describe the other end of the zone, including the combined "Mumbai - Thane" entry. Solapur - Pandharpur and Baramati are further east but in the same zone, and the Solapur-Pandharpur page explains that combined entry.

Exam-city questions go to the IIT Bombay zone office, exactly as the official page lists it: IIT Bombay, Powai, Mumbai – 400 076, gateoffice@iitb.ac.in, 022-25767068 or 022-25767022. For portal and application problems, the organising institute is IIT Madras: helpdesk@gate.iitm.ac.in, 044-22578200. Write from your registered email ID and quote your enrolment ID.

The important dates page puts the city allotment notification on 4 January 2027 and results on 19 March 2027. The admit card date is still TBA, and every date is marked liable to change. All six exam days are Saturdays and Sundays.

Registered for both DA and CS? The two-paper page says your second paper may be at a different centre, though in the same city.

When the admit card is out, look up the centre that day and work out the route from where you will spend the night before. Reach well before the reporting time; an unfamiliar campus takes longer to find than you expect.

If you are coming home from elsewhere, the district's how-to-reach page gives the main options. Chhatrapati Rajaram Maharaj Airport in Kolhapur has flights from Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Tirupati. Kolhapur is a terminal station, with Miraj junction about 50 km away, and its trains run north towards Mumbai, Delhi and Nagpur, east towards Solapur and Hyderabad, and south towards Bengaluru and Tirupati. MSRTC runs regular buses to Mumbai and Pune, east to Sangli and Solapur, and west to Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg. Pune's Lohegaon airport is about 250 km away, roughly four and a quarter hours by road.

If GATE allots you Satara, Ratnagiri or Goa instead, travel the day before. Carry the printed admit card, the original photo ID you gave in your application, and whatever else the admit card lists.

None of the institutes on GATEiit is in Kolhapur itself, so most of us look a few hours away. Each page below explains that institute's GATE routes for DA and CSE candidates:

• IIT Bombay, Mumbai, which also runs our zone
• IIIT Pune, Talegaon, Pune district
• DIAT Pune, Pune
• IIT Goa, Ponda, Goa
• NIT Goa, Cuncolim, Goa

Across the border are IIT Dharwad and IIIT Dharwad. The zone you write in plays no part in admissions; writing in Kolhapur does not count against you at Dharwad. The full list is at /institutes.

GATEiit is a website, free to use, with no centre, office or classroom in Kolhapur or anywhere else.

Start on your paper page: GATE DA for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence or GATE CSE for Computer Science and Information Technology. Each has the syllabus and the WhatsApp group link. Solve past papers on /pyq, drill topics on /practice, and follow the GATE DA 2027 guide or the GATE CSE 2027 guide. More guides are at /guides.

With the exams on weekends, write your full-length mocks on Saturday and Sunday mornings so the timing feels normal by February. The GATE 2027 page has the full timeline, and /gate-2027/cities links every city page.