GATE 2027 in Solapur-Pandharpur: One Exam City, Two Towns and the Zone Line

On the official GATE 2027 exam-city page, look under Maharashtra in the IIT Bombay zone and you will find "Solapur - Pandharpur". It is a single option on the form, not two. You cannot ask for Solapur and leave out Pandharpur.

That matters more here than for most combined entries. The district's Pandharpur page puts Pandharpur 72 km by road from Solapur, the district headquarters. So a student in Solapur city could be sent to a centre in Pandharpur, and a student in Pandharpur could be sent to Solapur. Nothing on the list says how centres are split between the two. Wait for the admit card and plan from there.

The general rules from the same page:

• You pick six cities, all from one zone.
• The list is tentative; GATE may add or remove a city, or allot one that is not among your six.
• GATE 2027 is held only in India.

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

The district's geography page describes Solapur district as lying on the south-east fringe of Maharashtra, bounded on the east by Osmanabad and Gulbarga (Karnataka), and on the south by Sangli and Bijapur (Karnataka). If you have family across that border, or a job or college in Hyderabad, check the zones before you think of those cities as back-ups. On the GATE list the line runs along the state boundary:

City	Zone on the GATE 2027 list	Can it go with Solapur - Pandharpur?
Latur, Nanded	IIT Bombay	Yes
Pune, Baramati, Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur	IIT Bombay	Yes
Kalaburagi (Gulbarga), Bidar, Belagavi	IISc	No
Hyderabad, Nalgonda	IISc	No
Nizamabad, Warangal	IIT Madras	No

Two neighbouring districts named on that page, Osmanabad and Bijapur, have no exam city of their own on the list. Telangana is itself split between the IISc and IIT Madras zones, so neither half can be mixed with a Maharashtra list.

If you work in Hyderabad and want to write there, the whole form has to be an IISc list, and Solapur - Pandharpur comes off it. The Hyderabad page explains the choices on that side.

Every one of the 22 Maharashtra entries is IIT Bombay zone, so you have room. A list built around the district:

1. Solapur - Pandharpur
2. Latur
3. Baramati
4. Pune
5. Sangli or Satara
6. Ahilyanagar (Ahmednagar) or Kolhapur

Put first the place where you could stay the night before without trouble. A student in a Pune college with a hostel room might lead with Pune and keep the home entry second. The geography page lists Ahmednagar, Pune, Satara and Sangli among the district's neighbours. All four have entries in this zone, Ahmednagar as "Ahilyanagar (Ahmednagar)". Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar (Aurangabad), Nanded and Mumbai - Thane are in the same zone too.

The Pune page and the Kolhapur page cover the western side of the zone in more detail.

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

Dates to note: the city allotment notification on 4 January 2027, an admit card date still TBA, and results on 19 March 2027. All dates are marked liable to change. If you registered for DA and CS together, the two-paper page says the second centre may differ from the first, but will be in the same city.

Once the admit card is out, check straight away which town your centre is in. With two towns behind one name, this is the first thing to confirm.

If you are allotted the other town, travel the day before. For anyone going to Pandharpur by train, the district page says the Pandharpur railway station is on the Miraj-Kurduwadi-Latur line of Central Railway. Check the timings with the railways closer to the date.

The same page says Pandharpur draws large crowds for its Ekadashi festivals through the year. Keep that in mind when you book a room near a Pandharpur centre, and book early.

Carry the printed admit card, the original photo ID you entered in your application, and anything else the admit card asks for. Reach well before the reporting time.

No institute with a GATEiit page is in Solapur district. These are the ones in the state, each with a page on its GATE routes for DA and CSE candidates:

• IIT Bombay, Mumbai, which also runs the zone
• IIIT Pune, Talegaon, Pune district
• DIAT Pune, Pune
• VNIT Nagpur, Nagpur

To the east, in Telangana, are IIT Hyderabad at Sangareddy, IIIT Hyderabad and the University of Hyderabad. Where you write the exam makes no difference to where you can apply; a Maharashtra centre does not count against you in Telangana. The full list is at /institutes.

GATEiit is a free website. It has no centre, office or classroom in Solapur, Pandharpur or anywhere else.

Begin with your paper page, GATE DA for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence or GATE CSE for Computer Science and Information Technology, which carries the syllabus and the WhatsApp group link. Then work through previous papers on /pyq and topic practice on /practice. The GATE DA 2027 guide and the GATE CSE 2027 guide set out a plan, and /guides has more.

The GATE 2027 page has the timeline, and the city overview links every other city page.