Patna, April 27: The city can easily surpass Kota as the biggest coaching hub in the country. Even a hoarding of a coaching institute in busy Dak Bungalow roundabout reads, “Let’s make Patna the next Kota”.

Kota in Rajasthan has been a big coaching hub for some time now. It has a large number of institutes, each claiming to produce several IITians every year. But Patna is not far behind.

The capital boasts of more than 1,500 coaching institutes, big and small, for JEE and other entrance exams. Many national-level coaching institutes, including FIIT-JEE, Brilliant Tutorials, Pie Classes and Akash Institute, have opened their centres.

Leaving aside national-level coaching institutes, there are regional players like Vision Classes, Sriti and Margdarshan. Individuals or a group of teachers run coaching institutes as well.

R.B. Sharma recently joined a coaching institute in Patna after teaching at Kota for several years. He said: “There is no reason why Patna can’t be developed on the lines of Kota as more than 50 per cent of the teachers and students in Kota are from Bihar.”

Sharma said the annual turnover of the coaching business in Kota stands at more than Rs 1,000 crore. He said: “Coaching has helped many other businesses in Rajasthan to flourish. If this money is diverted to Bihar, especially Patna, it will boost the economy.”

Rohit Srivastava, who teaches at a coaching institute in the capital, said: “According to my knowledge, more than 10 teachers have come down from Kota to Bihar last year following improvement in the law and order situation in the state.” If quality institutes come up in the city, Bihar students would stop opting for coaching institutes in water-starved Kota.

Every year, more than 20,000 students from Bihar go to Kota to prepare for IIT-JEE but hardly 10 per cent clear the examinations. Sikander Kumar, who appeared in IIT entrance examination this year after taking tuitions from Bansal Classes, said: “In Kota, only brilliant and sincere students get teachers’ attention.”

He added that it is not the case in Patna. All students are given equal attention by the institutes.

Sikander said the fee in coaching institutes in Kota is very high. He said: “On an average, a student has to spend more than Rs 3.5 lakh, including Rs 1.5 lakh tuition fee, for JEE preparations in Kota in two years. In Patna, the fee structure is less compared to Kota institutes.”

Anand Rajan, another student who took tuitions in Kota, said: “The only advantage of Kota is that a student can learn from teachers in mathematics, physics and chemistry under a single roof at a coaching institute. In Patna, there are quality teachers but not under a single roof.”