They have advertised for 50 pilots but I doubt they will take that many. 50 and 100 is a good figure to balance the statistical odds of making it in the minds of the candidate.
My guess is they will come up with another "external" exam again next year and advertise for 50 and take another 10. Of course after charging 35,000 for it from 3000 odd candidates. To put that in perspective, it costs Rs 9,500 per hour to hire a Cessna 152 in India, but SG charges you Rs35,000 to fiddle with their joystick(no pun intended) for 15 minutes. It's a sorry state of affairs. The company know that the first job is hard to come by and use this psychology to extract maximum from desperate candidates. Shame there is no regulatory body overseeing these malpractices.
I wonder how much higher they can hike their exam fee without facing protest. Is charging 50,000 for the test justified? Would you pay 1 lakh to appear for it? Is 3 lakhs a bit too much? How about 5 lakhs, is that way over the roof?