The coaching industry has now grown to be worth more than Rs 5,000 crore, providing job opportunities to people across the country.
Kota, Rajasthan: Kota, once a flourishing industrial town on the banks of the Chambal river in Rajasthan with a population of about 12 lakh, has transformed itself into a booming coaching hub of the country. Once famous for stone and saree industries, the coaching industry in Kota has now grown to be worth more than Rs 5,000 crore, providing job opportunities to people across the country.
Speaking to The Sunday Guardian, C.P. Choudhury, vice president of Allen Career Institute, said that the yearly growth rate of Kota’s coaching industry ranges from 7% to 10%. “Nearly 2 crore students in India are looking for coaching to get into engineering, medical or law colleges. As government and private schools are unable to cater to the needs of students, coaching institutes have become a necessary part of the education system,” Choudhury said.
At present, the city has a population of nearly 2 lakh students who are enrolled in various engineering and medical coaching centers. Out of them, around 1 lakh students are in the Allen Career Institute which provides coaching for both engineering and medical aspirants. “We are the oldest coaching centre here. We have best faculty and most of them are our alumni. With more than 1,200 teachers, students here get the chance of one-on-one interaction with teachers during ‘doubt clearing’ sessions along with regular classes,” Choudhury added. Choudhury was a student of 1994 batch of Allen Career Institute and an IIT graduate.
Established in 1988, Allen Career Institute is one of the pioneers of the coaching industry in Kota, along with Bansal Classes. The beginning of the coaching industry has an inalienable relation with the city’s J&K Synthetics, shutting down of which left its workers jobless in the 1980s. According to residents of the city, it was after this incident that the coaching industry in Kota started flourishing.
Vinod Kumar Bansal, who later started Bansal Classes, and Rajesh Maheshwari, who started Allen Career Institute, used to be neighbours in the J&K Synthetics factory’s employees’ colony.
While speaking to The Sunday Guardian, Maheshwari said, “Bansal uncle and I used to live in the same lane in J&K colony. Bansal uncle started teaching in 1983, but started his institute in 1991. I started teaching in 1986 and started my institute in 1988. However, I was never an employee in J&K Synthetics like Bansal sahab. My father worked there and died in the 1980s. Initially, I had only two students and now almost 1 lakh students are part of my coaching institute.”
Maheshwari also said that it is the passion for teaching which drove the city to what Prime Minister Narendra Modi termed in Parliament as “Kashi of Education”.
The growing number of students is also helping the local economy in various ways. It has created a demand for accommodation facilities such as hostels/PGs, along with generating employment for locals. There are at least five major coaching institutes in Kota, along with several small tuition centers. With the mushrooming of coaching and tuition centres, shops of grocery, laundry, fast food and electronic goods have also increased in number.
Talking about the potential of Kota, Maheshwari added, “If the government provides us some support system such as development of present airport for better connectivity to Kota, it is estimated that Kota would be able to attract more than Rs 25,000 crore by way of investments.”
(The reporter had gone to Kota at the invitation of the Allen Career Institute)