The noble initiative by the Students' Guidance Centre of Chandragupt Institute of Management Patna to provide free management entrance coaching to economically weaker students from the SC/ST and OBC communities has been delivering positive results.
Several students, who had taken coaching at the centre, are now set to enter corporate houses with lucrative salaries after completing their management education from premier institutions. The centre was started in 2009.
Patna youth Sandeep Choudhary, who enrolled into Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), Delhi University, in 2013 after studying at the centre for more than a year, is set to join Lenovo with a package of Rs 15 lakh.
Sandeep, son of a retired Food Corporation of India employee, had faced financial crisis and at one point of time had to impart tuitions to support his parents during his under-graduation studies.
Sandeep is an engineering graduate from Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, Bihta. He took admission at FMS after studying at the Students' Guidance Centre. Sandeep had taken education loans for both his engineering and management studies.
Sandeep told The Telegraph from Delhi: "As I had taken an education loan for the engineering course at Bihta, I used to give tuitions earning around Rs 13,000 per month to meet my study expenses and to support my family."
After completing engineering, Sandeep was placed in a Jamshedpur-based company but the package offered was less than Rs 2 lakh per annum. He didn't join the firm but started preparing for his management entrance exam at the guidance centre.
Sandeep joined the centre in 2012 studied there for a year before clearing the FMS examination. He said: "The teaching process at the centre was very different as teachers and visiting faculty at Chandragupt Institute of Management Patna taught us." Sandeep added that after joining Lenovo, he would be able to clear all loans.
Sachin Kumar, son of a small farmer in Nalanda, joined the centre in 2012 after his graduation. He qualified in the entrance test of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, on his first attempt.
Sachin has received placement at Andhra Pradesh Planning Commission at a package of Rs 4.2 lakh per annum.
Sachin said from Mumbai: "My father is a small farmer who has to support a family of eight. With his meagre income, it was like a dream for me to study at TISS, but the CIMP guidance centre has changed my life. Free coaching provided by faculty members of the institute helped me clear the TISS entry examination."
Apart from Sandeep and Sachin, Vishakha Kumari, a student of the centre's 2012 batch, took admission in the prestigious Institute of Rural Management, Anand, (IRMA). She has been offered a job at Janalakshmi Financial Services Pvt. Ltd, a micro-finance company at Bangalore at a package of Rs 7 lakh.
CIMP director V. Mukunda Das said: "CIMP's Students' Guidance Centre focuses on the accelerated development of Bihar by providing educational access to brilliant students from socially backward sections in the state."
The centre's work is two-fold. First, to identify bright students from socially backward sections of SC/ST and OBC communities aspiring for admission to IIMs and other management institutes. Second, to provide them entrance exam training, counselling, personality development, group discussion and interview inputs to equip them to compete in the CAT and other management examinations.
