Bansal Sir began offering private tuition in Mathematics to IIT aspirants across the table in his dining room in his JK Colony residence after he was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy and became wheelchair-bound. In 1988, he founded Bansal Classes — the first coaching institute in Kota.
Around the same time, Rajesh Maheshwari, a polytechnic diploma holder, started Allen Career Institute — named after his father L.N. Maheshwari — at a rented place in Vallabhbari locality. “Ours was the first institute offering coaching in all three subjects under one roof,” he claims as he shows me around the Allen headquarters, called Sankalp, in Indira Vihar area.
In 1993, Pramod Maheshwari, a Kota boy, graduated from IIT Delhi but his mother didn’t allow him to go to the United States for higher studies — in those days, he says, IIT was considered a gateway to America. When he returned home in Kota, he didn’t find anything worthwhile to do in the industrial centre which had fallen on hard times. So he began teaching Physics at Bansal Classes. But very soon, Pramod set up Career Point, his own venture, with 51 students in a tyre godown — and became the first IITian in Kota to start a coaching school.
A few years earlier, a boy from a remote village in Ramganj Mandi, a municipality in Kota famous for limestone mining and coriander, cracked the IIT entrance exam with the help of books he picked up from Rampura market in Kota.
R.K. Verma sir’s father worked as a mine labour and during vacations, he joined him in the mines. He graduated from IIT Madras in 1994 and returned to Kota to prepare for one of the most desirable jobs in India, the Indian Administrative Services (IAS). When he couldn’t clear the three-tier recruitment process, he joined Bansal Classes as a Physics faculty, to fill in the gap left by Pramod Maheshwari. Two years after Maheshwari, Verma became the second IITian to plunge into coaching in 1995.
As the rate of Kota students selected for IITs rose, the city’s reputation for success spread, and young hopefuls steps in to the city from other parts of the country. Success of Bansal Classes and Career Point inspired a host of other institutions.
In 2001, R.K. Verma, along with Lokesh Khandelwal(who went to IIT Kanpur before he briefly taught Chemistry at Bansal Classes) founded Resonance.
Seven more Bansal teachers branched out in 2009 to start Vibrant Academy.
In 25 years, Kota has produced about 150,000 engineers and more than 100,000 doctors. In the city with a population of one million, around 150,000+ students come for the preparation of these competitive tests. As the number of students rose, classrooms became hi-tech with world-class public address systems, lapel microphones and LCD projectors. Institutes diversified into coaching for the next best colleges such as the National institutes of technology (NITs) and Indian Institutes of Information Technologies (IIITs) for technical, and newer AIIMS and state medical colleges.
A Boom in coaching business arouse private hostels and mess. Houses added second and third floors to rent out to students. New hostels came up. Eateries and tiffin centres began doing brisk business. Cycle shops recorded surge in sales since most of the students, especially boys, pedal to coaching institutes.
According to a rough estimate, there are about 2,500 hostels and paying guest centres in the city where the cost is directly proportional to distance from a coaching institute, but these days it is nothing less than Rs3,000 per month. In certain areas such as Rajiv Gandhi Nagar, some rooms cost as much as Rs20,000 a month. Of course, these are fully-furnished and air-conditioned.
Cost of cramming in Kota has gone up every year. Besides the course fee, which is anything between Rs80,000 and Rs120,000 per year, and expense on accommodation, parents pay through their nose to meet school tuition fees and pocket expenses. The total cost comes to Rs250,000 to Rs300,000 a year for each youngster.
So this was the Incredible story of "Incredible Kota".
Courtesy- http://iitandkota.blogspot.in
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