At least one IAS coaching institute has stopped free classes due to ‘lack of funds’; candidates say they have approached SC/ST Welfare Department and office of Minister but to no avail
At least one IAS coaching institute has stopped free classes due to ‘lack of funds’; candidates say they have approached SC/ST Welfare Department and office of Minister but to no avail
Kirti, 23, the daughter of a milkman, aspired to become an IAS officer since her school days but could not afford the money required to enrol in a good private coaching institute. She was on cloud nine when she got through a Delhi government scheme facilitating free coaching for civil services aspirants, but her joy was short-lived.
“Our institute informed us that they could not continue the coaching as the government had not paid them the promised funds. The coaching stopped and now there is a lot of pressure on me from my family to get married,” said Ms. Kirti, whose father earns ₹12,000 a month.
The Delhi government’s ‘Jai Bhim Mukhyamantri Pratibha Vikas Yojana’, launched in 2018 for students from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes with annual family income less than ₹8 lakh, gave an opportunity to aspirants to avail of free coaching for various competitive exams.
Checking process on
The fee for the coaching was to be borne by the government but it is yet to pay any money to most of the 46 private institutes that started the free coaching last October, an official source confirmed. The delay is due to the government’s process of checking whether the details submitted by the institutes are accurate, said the source.
About 13,000 students enrolled in different programmes under the scheme in October 2021.
At least one IAS coaching institute, which was providing free classes for competitive exams to the students, has stopped it now due to “lack of funds”, as per a message sent to the students and seen by The Hindu.
Awaiting govt. response
Another institute, Photons IAS Academy, said they taught 340 students under the scheme but did not get any funds from the government. “We have met the Minister [former SC/ST Welfare Minister Rajendra Pal Gautam] and the Chief Secretary regarding the fees and submitted memorandums. It is the same with most of the other institutes,” said the institute’s director Vimal Singh.
Two other institutes teaching over 300 and 100 students under the scheme said they were not willing to start new batches.
Despite multiple attempts, the Delhi government spokesperson did not offer a comment.
Ms. Kirti said she enrolled at the private institute under the scheme in 2019 but the batch was discontinued for some reason. “Later, due to the pandemic, the institute was shut. Our classes started again in October 2021. They put all 100 students under the government scheme in one class. While other students were taught for six hours a day, we got two hours of class. Till July, the institute had covered less than 30% of the syllabus,” she said.
Anurag, 23, the son of a tailor and a batchmate of Ms. Kirti, said he too received the same message about course discontinuation in July. “I had left a job to join the coaching as it was my dream to become an IAS officer. After they discontinued our batch, we went to the office of SC, ST Welfare Department several times and even filed a complaint to the office of [Education Minister] Manish Sisodia but to no avail,” he said.
