A Kota at IIT8230;

A visit to the middle-class residential colonies of Vigyan Nagar and Talwandi provides the general picture. Students rush past on their cycles to attend coaching institutes. Every third house offers some sort of coaching, boarding or fooding facility. The parks have banners advertising places which supply tiffins. In the adjoining localities, houseowners have cannily constructed upper floors to rent rooms to students for Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,500 per month.

8216;8216;Development got a boost due to these institutes. Five years ago, there was nothing here except a few Housing Board flats. Now, land rates have spiralled to Rs 5,000 per sq foot. During admission time in May-June, you can8217;t get a room in any hotel here,8217;8217; says Phool Chand Verma, owner of a 50-room hotel-cum-mess in Talwandi. Even dusty grocery stores have converted half their premises into makeshift cyber cafes or restaurants.

At the most celebrated coaching institute of them all 8212; the double-storeyed granite-floored Bansal Classes 8212; which produced 484 IITians this year, including topper Dugara Ram Chaudhary and number three Harshit Chopra, the clamour of students is almost deafening. The annual fees for Class X, XI and XII students vary from Rs 27,000 to Rs 40,000, but nobody8217;s complaining.

Besides students from metros like Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata, the city even attracts those from distant places like Shillong and Nepal. There is even a son of an IIT professor from Mumbai at Bansal.

8216;8216;People have developed faith in us because of our results. I am inundated with calls for admission from influential people across the country. The only call I haven8217;t received so far is from the PM8230; we admit students purely on merit 8212; only those who score 80 per cent in our entrance test are admitted. We boast a 50 per cent success rate,8217;8217; says Pramod Kumar Bansal, whose handicapped brother Vinod spearheaded the coaching boom see accompanying box. With an annual turnover of Rs 10 crores, expansion plans include construction of a centrally air-conditioned classroom block.

Interestingly, Bansal has spawned a number of institutes run by former employees. Some even offer a Rs 4,000 crash course to clear Bansal8217;s stringent entrance test. Out of the 7,000 or more students who appear for the test, only 1,600-1,900 are inducted. The rest are absorbed by the glut of institutes which do not boast a screening procedure, keeping 65 per cent as the minimum qualification. In the past two years, even reputed coaching institutes from Indore, Patna and Delhi have opened branches here.

In neighbouring Talwandi, the three-storeyed Allens Institute run by four engineer brothers is the most sought after institute for medical entrance tests. It was also one of the first to be established in 1989 by a former engineer in JK Synthetics, Rajesh Maheshwari. Allens charges Rs 19,000 for a one-year course for medical entrance tests. Unlike Bansal, here the intake averages 6,000 a year, with both English medium and Hindi medium courses for students 8212; the latter comprising 60 per cent. Says Navin Maheshwari: 8216;8216;Our student base is from remote villages across India. When a boy from a village becomes a doctor, it is reason for celebration.8217;8217;

It is boomtime for the 18 CBSE schools in Kota too. As most students come to the city after passing their Class X exams, they enroll in a regular school to simultaneously complete their Class XII also. So, many schools have arrangements with the coaching institutes and adjust their timings for Classes XI and XII accordingly 8212; classes are held from 7 am to 10:30 am, leaving the students free for the rest of the day.

And the schools are raking in the profits. While there are just 250 students in Class X in I.L. School, Class XI has a staggering total of 650 students. 8216;8216;We do not take attendance in our school, we use the attendance at Bansal. We are here to help the students. They come at their own convenience, attending school for just one or two days per month,8217;8217; says Anita Shah, an English teacher.

About 10 kms away, St Johns has about Rs 450 students each in Class XI and XII, as against the 150 in Class X. 8216;8216;It is very good for us. We are able to publish pamphlets claiming credit for our students who get admitted to the IITs,8217;8217; says M.M. Alam, vice-principal.

It is the same story in the hi-tech DAV Public School in Talwandi, where photographs of successful entrants to IIT 8212; 105 this year 8212; and AIIMS occupy pride of place in the lobby. However, despite the profits, Principal P.P. Sewak is scathing in his condemnation of the coaching industry. 8216;8216;They are making schooling secondary to coaching and earning 1000 times more than us. Some students clear the IIT entrance but fail or get a compartmental in the Class XII board exams. For the child, it is a double strain to attend so many classes,8217;8217; he says. Nevertheless, Sewak too has adjusted his school timings to suit the institutes, but he insists on 75 per cent attendance.

Although only about five per cent of the thousands of aspiring students achieve their goals, the deluge continues. And everyone is cashing in. 8216;8216;There has been a 200 per cent increase in travel agencies, restaurants and hotels since these institutes came up,8217;8217; says Pankaj Jain, a physics teacher.