The board is in a quandary over the rescheduling of the exam as other national-level entrance exams have been scheduled on most of the next few Sundays. The forthcoming panchayat election, which will be held in three phases from May 11 to 18, is also keeping two precious Sundays out of bounds.

Board chairman Siddhartha Dutta met state higher education minister Sudarshan Roychowdhury on Monday and discussed the possibility of holding the exam on a weekday or on a Saturday, considering the lack of available dates this year. Unwilling to divulge the details of the meeting, Dutta said: "We will announce the re-scheduled date in the next couple of days."

Asked whether it would be feasible to hold the exam on a weekday or a Saturday, Dutta said: "We have also discussed this, but I am not in a position to elaborate on it just yet. We have to keep in mind the panchayat election and the dates on which other engineering and medical entrance exams are scheduled. Moreover, we also need to remember the Supreme Court's direction that the WBJEE results have to be published by June 15."

While the CBSE-organised AIEEE will be held on April 27, the entrance exam for Indian Statistical Institute has been scheduled for May 4, which coincides with the medical entrance exam of Karnataka. The two Sundays following that exam are out of bounds because of the panchayat election. The entrance exam for AIIMS will be held on June 1, while the JIPMER entrance exam has been scheduled for June 8.

"If we have to hold the exam on a Sunday, the only available date is May 25. However, that will be too late," said an official of the state higher education department.