New Delhi, May 26 (IANS) Hyderabad boy Anumula Jithendar Reddy has topped the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology-Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE) this year, the results of which were declared Wednesday.

Attributing the success to his family and teachers, Anumula said: 'The guidance of my parents and our institution built the way and I thank them.'

Anumula appeared in the exam from IIT Madras zone, which has the second-largest number of students, 2,619, clearing the exam this year.

While Uday K. Shah, also from Hyderabad, stood second, Himanshu Gupta from Delhi stood third in the highly competitive exam.

All three students received their coaching for IIT at the Narayana Group of Educational Institutions, which have their branches all over India.

A total of 13,104 candidates cleared the exam this year.

Among the various zones, IIT Bombay has topped with 3,145 students in the merit list, followed by IIT Madras. There are 2,246 students from IIT Delhi zone, 1,481 from IIT Kharagpur, 1,341 from IIT Kanpur, 1,305 from IIT Roorkee and 521 from IIT Guwahati zone.

These students will be eligible for admission in IITs at Mumbai, Delhi, Guwahati, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras, Roorkee, Bhubaneswar, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad, Indore, Mandi, Patna, Rajasthan and Ropar and ISM Dhanbad and IT-BHU.

While girls did better than boys in the recent Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE) 12th results, their numbers in IIT-JEE remained less with only 1,476 girls qualifying out of over 1.13 lakh aspirants.

The number of students passing the exam in Hindi medium showed a three-fold increase with 554 candidates in the final list this year compared to 184 last year.

Among the reserved categories, 2,357 OBCs, 1,772 Scheduled Castes (SCs) and 174 physically-challenged students cracked the exam.