GATE 2027 in Siliguri: North Bengal's Exam City in the IIT Guwahati Zone

West Bengal has thirteen names on the official exam-city list, and they are not all in the same zone. That surprises people who assume a Bengal city must belong to IIT Kharagpur.

West Bengal city on the list	Zone
Siliguri, Kalyani, Durgapur, Asansol, Burdwan	IIT Guwahati
Kolkata, Howrah, Hooghly, Kharagpur-Midnapur, Kolaghat, Bankura, Berhampore, Suri	IIT Kharagpur

Siliguri is the only north Bengal name. Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar and Malda are not on the list, so a student from those places who wants to write close to home picks Siliguri.

The rules on the same page apply to everyone. You choose six cities, all from one zone. The list is tentative: GATE may add or drop a city, and may allot you one outside your six. GATE 2027 is held only in India.

The IIT Guwahati zone is large. Besides the five Bengal cities above, it holds:

• Gangtok, Sikkim's only entry.
• Purnea, Bhagalpur, Patna and Muzaffarpur in Bihar.
• Dhanbad and Bokaro Steel City in Jharkhand.
• Guwahati, Dibrugarh, Jorhat, Silchar and Tezpur in Assam, and the other north-eastern entries: Shillong, Agartala, Aizawl, Imphal, Dimapur-Kohima, Naharlagun and Papum pare.

The two cities in the zone that a Siliguri candidate is most likely to know well are Gangtok and Kalyani. Gangtok is linked to Siliguri by road. The Gangtok district's travel page says Sikkim Nationalised Transport buses run from Siliguri bus stand to Gangtok, roughly five to six hours. Kalyani is the useful one for anyone studying in or near Kolkata: it sits close to the city but is filed under IIT Guwahati.

One sensible order for a student at home in Siliguri:

1. Siliguri
2. Gangtok
3. Kalyani
4. Durgapur
5. Guwahati
6. Asansol

Swap in Purnea or Patna if family there makes a stay easier. Avoid Ranchi, Jamshedpur and Hazaribagh: they look like neighbours of Dhanbad but are IIT Kharagpur zone.

Many students from north Bengal spend their B.Tech years in Kolkata, Howrah or Durgapur. When you fill the form, you have to choose which zone you will write in.

If your college is in Durgapur, Asansol, Burdwan or Kalyani, you are lucky. Those cities are in the same zone as Siliguri, so you can list your college city and home together. See the Durgapur and Kalyani pages.

If your college is in Kolkata or Howrah, you cannot. A list built around Kolkata is IIT Kharagpur zone and leaves Siliguri out (the Kolkata and Howrah pages cover that side). A list built around Siliguri can take Kalyani as its Kolkata-side option and nothing closer. Decide where you will physically be on your exam day, and fill the form for that zone.

One more point of confusion: IIT Kharagpur coordinates the south Bengal zone, but Siliguri's zone office is IIT Guwahati.

The list does not give centre addresses. City allotment is due on 4 January 2027, and the exact centre, with the reporting time, comes on the admit card, whose date is still TBA. If you are writing DA and CS together, the two-paper page says your second paper's centre may be different but will be in the same city.

The Gangtok district's travel page describes Siliguri and New Jalpaiguri as railway stations with trains to Kolkata, Delhi and other major cities, and mentions an airport at Bagdogra in West Bengal. So coming home to write is straightforward by rail or air, but give yourself a day in hand rather than arriving on the morning of the paper.

Once you have the address, go and look at the building the day before. Carry the printed admit card and the photo ID it asks for, and nothing it forbids.

Exam-city questions from Siliguri go to IIT Guwahati, the zone's coordinating institute: Guwahati 781 039, gate@iitg.ac.in, phone 0361-2582751. Portal and paper questions go to IIT Madras, which organises GATE 2027: helpdesk@gate.iitm.ac.in, 044-22578200. Write from your registered email and quote your enrolment ID.

The important dates page lists:

• Exams: 6, 7, 13, 14, 20 and 21 February 2027, each a Saturday or Sunday.
• City allotment: 4 January 2027.
• Admit card: TBA.
• Results: 19 March 2027.

The paid data-correction window is TBA, and all dates are liable to change.

None of GATEiit's institute pages is in Siliguri itself. The two closest in the zone:

• NIT Sikkim. Its contact page gives the address as Barfung Block, Ravangla Sub-Division, District Namchi, Sikkim 737139. Its campus page describes Ravangla as a temporary campus, with a proposed permanent campus at Khamdong.
• IIT Guwahati, Guwahati 781039, which is also your zone office.

Each page explains that institute's GATE routes for DA and CS candidates. In Bengal, GATEiit also has pages for IIIT Kalyani, NIT Durgapur, IIEST Shibpur and IIT Kharagpur, and IIIT Guwahati is in Assam. The full list is at /institutes.

Your exam city has no bearing on admission. Writing in Siliguri does not help or hurt you at IIT Kharagpur.

GATEiit is a free online site with no centre or office in Siliguri or anywhere else. What it offers works the same from a hostel in Kolkata or a room at home.

Start with your paper: GATE DA for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, or GATE CSE for Computer Science and Information Technology. Each page carries the syllabus and the link to that paper's WhatsApp group. Previous papers are on /pyq and topic sets on /practice. The GATE DA 2027 guide and GATE CSE 2027 guide lay out a plan, with more at /guides.

Keep weekend mornings for full mocks, since the exam days are weekends. The GATE 2027 page and the exam-city overview fill in the national picture, and the Gangtok and Guwahati pages show the zone from other ends.