Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) is an all India examination administered and conducted jointly by the Indian Institute of Science and seven Indian Institutes of Technology on behalf of the National Coordination Board - GATE, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India.

The GATE committee, which comprises of representatives from the administering institutes, is the sole authority for regulating the examination and declaring the results.

GATE is conducted through the constitution of eight zones. The zones and the corresponding administrative institutes are:

Zone-1: Indian Institute of Science Bangalore
Zone-2: Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
Zone-3: Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
Zone-4: Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati
Zone-5: Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Zone-6: Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
Zone-7: Indian Institute of Technology Madras
Zone-8: Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee

The overall coordination and responsibility of conducting GATE 2010 lies with Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, designated as the Organising Institute for GATE 2010 .

Admission to postgraduate programmes with MHRD and some other government scholarships/ assistantships in engineering colleges/institutes is open to those who qualify through GATE. GATE qualified candidates with Bachelor’s degree in Engineering/ Technology/ ArchItecture or Master’s degree in any branch of Science/ Mathematics/ Statistics/ Computer Applications are eligible for admission to Master/Doctoral programmes in Engineering/ Technology/ Architecture as well as for Doctoral programmes in relevant branches of Science with MHRD or other government scholarships/ assistantships. To avail the scholarship, the candidate must secure admission to such a postgraduate programme, as per the prevailing procedure of the admitting institution. However, candidates with Master’s degree in Engineering/ Technology/ Architecture may seek admission to relevant PhD programmes with scholarship/ assistantship without appearing in the GATE examination.

Some institutions specify GATE qualification as mandatory even for admission of self-financing students to postgraduate programmes. GATE qualified candidates are also eligible for the award of Junior Research Fellowship in CSIR Laboratories and CSIR sponsored projects. Top rank holders in some GATE papers are entitled to apply for “Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Fellowship” awarded by CSIR. Some government organizations prescribe GATE qualification as a requirement for applying to the post of a Scientist/ Engineer.