GATE 2027 in Visakhapatnam: Kharagpur Zone, Exam Cities and Institutes

It is easy to assume all of Andhra Pradesh goes to IIT Madras, since IIT Madras is organising GATE 2027. The official exam-city list says otherwise. Andhra Pradesh is divided across three zones:

Zone	Andhra Pradesh exam cities
IIT Kharagpur	Bhimavaram, Eluru, Kakinada-Surampalem, Rajamahendravaram (Rajahmundry), Srikakulam, Tadepalligudem, Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram
IIT Madras	Amaravati, Chirala-Bapatla, Chittoor, Guntur, Kadapa, Nandyala, Nellore, Ongole, Tirupati
IISc	Anantapur, Kurnool

Visakhapatnam appears once, as "Visakhapatnam". The form has no Vizag North or South, so whichever college or locality you are in, the form gives you one option and GATE assigns the centre.

The list is tentative. GATE may add or drop a city, and it may allot a city you did not choose if it has to. The exam is held only in India.

You get six choices and all six must be from one zone. For a Vizag student that rule is kind, because the Kharagpur zone takes in most of coastal Andhra on the list and carries on into Odisha.

One way to order it if you will be in Vizag in February:

1. Visakhapatnam
2. Vizianagaram
3. Srikakulam
4. Kakinada-Surampalem
5. Rajamahendravaram (Rajahmundry)
6. Brahmapur (Odisha) or Vijayawada, whichever you could reach more easily

Eluru, Tadepalligudem and Bhimavaram are also in the zone if your family is in the Godavari districts. Bhubaneswar and Cuttack are Kharagpur-zone too, which helps anyone with relatives in Odisha. A back-up is only useful if you could actually get there and sleep somewhere the night before, so rank by that and not by the order of the list.

This is the part people get wrong. Once Visakhapatnam is your first choice, these cities are off the table because they belong to other zones:

• IIT Madras zone: Guntur, Amaravati, Chirala-Bapatla, Ongole, Nellore, Tirupati, Kadapa, Chittoor and Nandyala in Andhra Pradesh; Warangal, Khammam and Kothagudem in Telangana.
• IISc zone: Anantapur and Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh, and Hyderabad.

So if you study at a Vizag college but your home is in Guntur or Ongole, you have a real choice to make. If you will be in your hostel during the exam weekends, stay with the Kharagpur list above. If you will be at home, build an all-IIT Madras list instead, for example Guntur, Amaravati, Chirala-Bapatla, Ongole, Nellore and Tirupati. What you cannot do is put Visakhapatnam and Guntur side by side. The Vijayawada page covers the same border from the other end, and the Hyderabad page explains the IISc side.

Questions about your exam city go to the zone office, and for Vizag that is IIT Kharagpur. The contact exactly as listed:

• IIT Kharagpur, Kharagpur – 721 302: gateonline@adm.iitkgp.ac.in, 03222-282091, 03222-282095

Mail from the address you registered with and put your enrolment ID in the first line. Questions about the paper or the application portal in general can go to the organising institute's helpdesk, helpdesk@gate.iitm.ac.in (044-22578200).

Registration has closed, including the special window that ended on 16 October 2026. The official dates page shows the data correction window as TBA. Whether you can still change your city order depends on what that window allows when it opens, so read it carefully then.

GATE 2027 runs on three weekends: 6 and 7 February, 13 and 14 February, and 20 and 21 February. The city allotment notification is due on 4 January 2027, so that is the day you learn whether you got Visakhapatnam or one of your back-ups. The admit card date is still TBA, and the admit card is what names your actual centre and reporting time.

A few habits that save trouble:

• If you were allotted Srikakulam, Kakinada or Rajahmundry, book your travel as soon as the admit card is out and reach the day before.
• Even inside Vizag, the centre may be in a part of the city you have never been to. Look it up the evening the admit card arrives and do a trial run if you can.
• Keep the printed admit card and the original photo ID you gave in the application in one envelope, and add anything else the admit card asks for.

The admit card's own instructions on what you may carry inside are final. Results are due on 19 March 2027.

Among the institutes with GATEiit pages, the one in Andhra Pradesh is IIT Tirupati, in Tirupati. Its page explains how DA and CSE candidates can get in through GATE.

Neighbouring Telangana has IIT Hyderabad, IIIT Hyderabad and NIT Warangal. Further away are IIT Madras, NIT Trichy and IISc Bengaluru. Everything is listed on /institutes.

Your exam city has nothing to do with admissions. Writing GATE in a Kharagpur-zone city does not tie you to IIT Kharagpur, and it does not count against you at IIT Tirupati either. Choose a city that makes exam day easy and choose institutes on their own merits.

GATEiit is an online site with no centre or office in Visakhapatnam or anywhere else, and it is free. That suits a final-year student juggling a project, or a graduate who has started work.

Pick your paper first. GATE DA is Data Science and Artificial Intelligence; GATE CSE is Computer Science and Information Technology. The official two-paper list allows DA and CS together, so you can write both if you prepare for both.

Then build a routine around three things: past papers on /pyq, topic-wise questions on /practice, and a plan from the DA 2027 guide or the CSE 2027 guide. Other write-ups are on /guides. The DA and CSE paper pages also link a WhatsApp group if you want people to discuss questions with.

The real exam is on weekends, so take your full mock tests on Saturday or Sunday mornings. The national overview is on GATE 2027 and the exam-city page.