Although the test prep business sector is crowded with an estimated 30,000 coaching schools and firms, it reflects well on the native spirit of enterprise that there’s no shortage of edupreneurs entering this highly competitive business. The latest entrants in this sector are Vivek Gupta (24), Mirik Gogri (23) and Nitesh Salvi (23) — final year metallurgy engineering students of IIT-Bombay (IIT-B). In 2011, the trio developed and registered Plancess Edu-Solutions Pvt. Ltd, a Mumbai-based e-learning company, which they believe offers students a more “affordable, convenient and effective’’ test prep methodology to top the IIT-JEE, AIEEE and other engineering entrance exams.

The story of Plancess started in 2009, when the trio brainstormed about ways and means to ride the new ICT (information communication technology) wave and take test prep way beyond coaching classes. In 2011, with the help of the entrepreneurial cell (E-Cell) of IIT-B — established in 1998 for young entrepreneurs to incubate high potential business ideas — the team raised venture capital of Rs.5 lakh from the Mumbai-based Aarti Group of Companies (estb. 1975), a big name in Mumbai’s chemicals trading circles.

“We believe that by leveraging ICT, devising new reasonably priced study materials and providing distance education, we can help students learn better and more conveniently. The company website (www.plancess.com) offers 330 hours of video lectures delivered by top 100 IIT-JEE 2009 rankers who also secured over 90 percent in their Plus Two exam. These lecturers are students who have gone through the process and know exactly what it takes to excel in competitive entrance exams,” says Gupta.

The Plancess study programme is priced at a modest Rs.15,000 for two years with supplementary video lectures priced between Rs.200-300 each. The study package includes a personal IIT graduate mentor who will interact with each student weekly on the internet or by telephone. “We believe we have devised a student-friendly study programme at an affordable price,’’ says Gogri.

Another high point of Plancess is the introduction of Shiksha Planner — a series of free counselling seminars throughout March this year. Shiksha has been a great success ever since it was conducted in nine colleges in Mumbai in 2009. The trio has since staged seminars in several cities including Udaipur and Bhubaneswar. “A major problem for IIT candidates is the lack of counseling, so these seminars help to familiarise them with the structure and process of IIT-JEE, and also offer advice on how to write other engineering entrance exams successfully,” explains Salvi.

Good news for IIT aspirants!

Praveer Sinha (Mumbai)

Also read: IIT Bombay tops at QS India rankings 2020