Slowdown in IIT coaching at Kota

Slowdown in IIT coaching at Kota-Education-Services-News By Industry-News-The Economic Times

17 Apr 2007, 0230 hrs IST,Rituraj Tiwari,TNN
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JAIPUR: The IIT coaching industry in Kota is likely to witness a downslide in coming years. And with this, the overall economy of the city, which is largely based on IIT-JEE coaching, would plummet to an extent of 15%.

Pramod Maheshwari, director (academics) of Career Point, a leading coaching institute in the country, told ET the number of IIT aspirants coming to the city has died down considerably after the chance-restriction. “With government restricting aspirants’ IIT-attempts to only twice in consecutive years, students are now aiming at AIEEE and state pre-engineering tests to ensure a berth for themselves.

It will result into an overall shrinkage of 15% in the annual turnover of the coaching industry, which is estimated to be sitting at Rs 250 crore,” Mr Maheshwari pointed out.

Institutes, however, are gearing up to fight out the situation. Career Point is planning to launch an IPO to raise funds for their diversification plans. “We would be the first IIT coaching institute to go public. By raising around Rs 60 crore, we would initiate international educational programmes to cater to the global needs,” Mr Maheshwari informed.

Every year more than 20000 students land at Kota to realise their IIT dreams. Of which, around 1,500 students succeed, which is one-thirds of the total seats of IITs and allied institutes. Now that the chance restriction has come into play for the first time this year, number of students coming to Kota is going to fall in the coming session.

The trend was quite evident in the last IIT-JEE examination. In 2006, more than 3 lakh students appeared for the IIT-JEE while this year, less than 2.5 lakh competed for around 4,600 seats. “Now to match last year’s turnover, institutes either will have to hike the fee or add other courses like AIEEE and state pre-engineering tests. Also, there would be a question of survival for feeble players, who rely on students failing to get admission in top-of-the-line coaching institutes,” Mr Maheshwari feared.

Top IIT coaching institute Bansal Classes has now forayed into pre-medical coaching also. It has recently started its pre-medical unit in Jaipur. However, PK Bansal, CEO of Bansal Classes, maintaining that IIT coaching business is running smooth, said, “We have started pre-medical coaching on an experimental basis in Jaipur only. It’s nothing to do with IIT coaching, which is our main thrust. Chance-restriction would not have any impact on us, since we have limited seats and long queue of aspirants in waiting,” Mr Bansal said.

Apart from coaching institutes, hostel owners and other ancillary businesses have started feeling the heat. “Last year, we were 150% booked. And this year only 75% rooms are occupied. We are expecting further fall in accommodation in the next session,” Sharad Kapoor, a hostel owner, said.