They may come from poor families, but their eyes sparkle with the IIT dream. Here is help for those who do not have financial means to chase their goals.

Three techies led by a 22-year-old student of Indian School of Mines (ISM), Dhanbad, have been providing free coaching to youngsters who want to crack various engineering entrance exams, including IIT-JEE.

Manikant Kumar, a third-year mining student, started mentoring more than a dozen students from humble backgrounds from Sunday this year. He is being assisted by his friends - Vivek Kumar of NIT-Adityapur and Chandan Kumar of Calcutta's Jadavpur University, who came to Dhanbad for this noble cause. There are other students such as Shivam Kumar and Radheshyam Singh from IIT-BHU who, too, are helping Manikant to provide free coaching.

"We started our mission of providing free coaching to the needy aspirants three years ago with half a dozen students selected from our contacts. Gradually, the number of students rose to around 12 and in three years at least 18 students had cleared various engineering entrance exams including JEE. Many of our students have now turned mentors after clearing their exams," Manikant told The Telegraph.

Notably, Manikant himself confronted the most daunting odds to crack the JEE.

A son of a farmer at Vikram area of Patna, Manikant somehow completed his schooling from Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Patna, and cracked the JEE three years ago to get admission in ISM.

So, how are the students selected for coaching?

"Students are selected through our personal contacts or through visit to different coaching centres of the district," said Manikant, adding that since time is less they concentrate on the basics of physics, chemistry and mathematics.

Asked if these classes did not hamper their own studies, Manikant said the coaching was held only during summer vacation from May till June-end. "Classes are generally held in the morning from 6 to 10. Since it is vacation time, so it does not clash with our class schedules," he said.

The trio functions from the office of local coaching institutes or some NGOs.

"As we are not a commercial institution, we do not have an office. This year, we have taken the help of Jharia-based NGO Samadhan, which is also engaged in providing free education to underprivileged children. We are currently holding classes from Raj Complex, which is the Dhanbad-based centre of Samadhan," added Manikant.