The narrow staircase of an old house leads to the first floor, and to a very small room that was refurbished into an office. A fan is swinging and a bulb is spreading milky light. There is no space for the air to escape, so a blanket of unbearable humidity engulfs the space. A person is sitting at the reception desk. The wall behind him has a poster with the name of his coaching centre and an enlarged photograph of a teacher. The person in the photograph and the person at the desk look the same. Probably, the teacher was also fulfilling the role of the receptionist.

This centre, which claims that their railway job aspirants always get the desired post, has a line in its pamphlet—Humari koi doosri shaakha nahi hai (We don’t have any other branch). I approach the receptionist as the elder brother of a railway job aspirant, and enquire about the courses and chances of securing a job. The teacher tells me, “It is a one-year course at the fee of Rs 18,000. It will prepare candidates for maths, reasoning, science and GK (General Knowledge).” He proceeds to sequentially talk about the jobs one can apply for on completing the course, how many questions will be from which subject in the examinations, and the passing marks required to qualify. After the course details, he quickly jumps to the cost structure for students who opt to reside at the institute. Price for one bed is Rs 1,800 per month, and if my brother decides to cook food at home, an additional Rs 2,000 will be charged for cooking utilities. It is important to do an ITI course to secure a technical job in the railways. Most of those who have not done so, turn to a coaching centre.

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The teacher/receptionist tells me, “I have acquaintances who run a private ITI institute. I can get the student’s admission done there. The student will not need to take classes. Just directly appear for the exam.”

Profit-making space

This coaching centre is located in Musallahpur Haat at Patna, Bihar’s capital city. The centres in this area and the nearby Bhikhna Pahari are inside buildings that are huddled next to each other on narrow streets. All their pamphlets announce there are empty beds for only boys and girls. Most of the building owners in the area operate lodges. Each floor has five to 10 small concrete rooms with no proper ventilation. Two beds have been put in each room. Each floor has a common toilet, a tap for water and a bathroom. Most rooms have a single electric board with two switches —one for the fan and the other for lights. There is no plug point for perhaps a mobile charger or cloth ironing machine as it may increase the electricity bill of the owner, who charges a fixed amount for electricity use. A student living at one such lodge, says on the condition of anonymity, “You cannot use electricity for anything else other than running a fan and light. I had to buy a board to charge my mobile phone. Now, I recharge the phone by connecting it to a wire meant for the bulb.”

Md Riyaz, a 75-year-old resident of Musallahpur Haat who runs an e-rickshaw here, notes that most of the buildings constructed in the area in the last 15-20 years are being run as lodges. “It’s a profitable business. If you put two beds in a room, you can roughly earn Rs 3,000-3,800 per month from just one room,” he says.

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The jostle for popularity

Vehicle advertisements pass on the main road every few minutes, claiming theirs is the best coaching centre to prepare for government jobs, and the enrolment process will end soon. Almost all the pamphlets have rhyming punchlines on their posters that are redolent of 80s over-the-top dialogues.

Students thronging stationery shops with photocopying machines to make copies of cult teachers like Khan Sir’s notes or making enquiries about courses and job opportunities at reception desks of coaching centres, are common sights. Many coaching centres have pasted passport size photographs of candidates who have secured jobs on their notice board. These vignettes from Musallahpur Haat show that coaching has become a lucrative industry. There is no concrete data on how many coaching centres operate in Patna, but those in the business roughly estimate it to be a little over a thousand.

Riyaz says the one-km stretch from Bhikhna Pahari to Musallahpur Haat gets so crowded with students in the evenings that he has to honk at every step. “It can even take 45 minutes to cross just one kilometre, so I avoid this route in the evenings.” The crowd multiplies on Saturday and Sunday evenings as all coaching centres conduct mock tests then. The mock test, called set marna in colloquial lingo, costs Rs 10 each.

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Most of the coaching centres provide coaching for the low-ranking jobs in Group C and Group D of Railways, Bihar Police, and PSUs as these jobs are key to securing the future for lower middle-class families from rural areas of the state. According to locals, till 2002 there were just a couple of coaching centres here. Before 2002, there was only one coaching centre here that used to prepare aspirants for banking.

When the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government dissolved the Banking Service Recruitment Board (BSRB) in 2002, the dream of holding a banking job died for many. Around the same time, Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav served as railway ministers for nine years. During their tenure, huge vacancies were floated to make railway jobs the first priority for low-income families from rural areas. This opened a huge avenue for private coaching centres. Platform is one such coaching centre, and the biggest in the area to conduct railway job preparation in Musallahpur. Sanjay Kumar, who owns the centre, says, “There was no other coaching centre in the area, when we opened our centre in 2002. A few private tutors were teaching aspirants, but it was not done in a professional manner. The boom in coaching centres came after 2002.”

All the coaching centres have their own way of wooing clients or aspirants. When I visited the railway coaching centre, I was asked which district I had come from. When I replied, the person immediately claimed, “Seven boys from one family in one of the villages in your district have got jobs in the railways. Hum jo course karwate hain, usse aap clerk se collector tak ki pariksha paas kar sakte hain (The course that we provide is so vast that one can crack clerk to collector’s exams).”

Another coaching centre, operating since 2008 for Classes 11th-12th and competitive exams of NDA, Navy, Air force and coast guard, has three branches at different locations in Patna. Everyone who visits the centre to make enquiries has to write their details in a register. It has a course package of Rs 63,000. The woman at the reception speaks in one breath like a machine, about the course, fees, questions coming in the exam, qualifying marks, interview, etc. though I didn’t ask for this information. “You can take admission in any college and study your Class 11th and 12th from here. This will improve your preparation for NDA, Navy and Airforce,” says the receptionist.

But if one gains admission at a college where regular attendance is compulsory, how will they make the time to attend classes at the institute? To this question, the woman says, “Our sir can help you gain admission in a college where attendance is not compulsory.” The institute’s brochure carries profile pictures of 12 boys who were students here and got selected in the Navy and Airforce in the last examination. This institute runs its own hostel, which charges Rs 4,500 per month for food and lodging. However, when I asked about the possibility of getting a job after studying in this coaching institute, she was a little cautious and made a comment on “luck, labour and chance”. ?

An employee of a coaching centre, on the condition of anonymity, says, “Students who do well in all subjects from Class 5th to 9th, will crack most of the competitive exams. So, the students who come to coaching centres either did not study properly or they were not taught properly.”

Dr Awadhesh Kumar, HoD, Department of Economics and Agriculture Economics, AN Sinha Institute of Social Sciences, feels the acute shortage of teachers at the school and college level is forcing students to go to private coaching centres. “Had the government recruited good teachers, the business of coaching centres would not have flourished.”

The students that Outlook spoke to are of the same opinion, but confide that they have no other option than coming to Patna to prepare, given the dearth of resources or study spaces in their villages. Take the case of Sushant Kumar, an 18-year-old resident of Begusarai district, who has been sharing a 10x10 room with another boy at Musallahpur Haat for four years now. Kumar had completed his intermediate studies in 2020 after attending coaching classes at Musallahpur Haat. He is now preparing aspirants for staff selection commission (SSC), an exam for all Group ‘B’ posts in the various Ministries/Departments and attached subordinate offices of the central government. “There is no proper environment in my village to study. But Patna has an ambience of education, because everyone around me is a student. Also, the advantage of preparing from an early age is that we get more time to prepare. This is the reason why I came to Patna only after matriculation,” says Kumar, who spends Rs 5,000-5,500 every month on rent and meals.

Limited jobs for women

The number of male aspirants at the coaching centre outranks their women counterparts by a huge margin, but the women too are marking their presence. At Platform coaching centre, around 10 per cent of the students are women. The main reason for low participation here is the nature of the job. “Railway jobs, especially the Group D ones, are considered unsafe for women, so their guardians don’t allow them to prepare for Railway jobs,” notes Sanjay. Instead, women opt for teaching, banking, SSC, BPSC (Bihar Public Service Commission), inspector and jobs that provide a safe working environment.

Santosh Kumar, who has been operating a coaching centre in Musallahpur Haat for 25 years, says 50 per cent of the aspirants are women in teaching, banking, BPSC and inspector job preparation. “Earlier their participation was low. Now, women want to be financially independent even in small towns so their presence is increasing.”

Neha Parveen, who belongs to Motihari in East Champaran, is preparing for BPSC staying at Patna. Her motive “to become financially independent as well as make a change at society level”. “When I first told my parents that I wanted to prepare for BPSC, they clearly told me that I cannot crack it at any cost. But when I cleared the entrance exam, they were supportive and allowed me to prepare,” she says.?

Any government job will do

Bihar lacks lucrative jobs in the private sector. At the same time, youth in government jobs see a stable future and social prestige. In Bihar, per capita net state domestic product (current price) in 2020-21 was Rs 46,292, which was the lowest among all states, according to the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. Multidimensional poverty index released last year says Bihar is at the top position in terms of poverty. “Around 51.90 per cent of Bihar’s population is poor,” says the report.

Due to the above reasons, a large number of youth come to the coaching hub of Patna in search of government jobs. However, they are not picky about wanting only high-ranking jobs. Most of the aspirants prepare for Railway Group C & D, daroga in Bihar police and other low-grade jobs.

Sudhansh Kumar, 25, a resident of Begusarai, has spent six years of his life in seach of a government job. Till now he has appeared for half a dozen jobs but without success. “BPSC is my priority, but I am applying for other jobs as well. I just want a job!” Sudhansh has decided to try his luck in a government job for another 3-4 years. “If I still don’t get it, I will opt for teaching. Even if the government job is from the D group category, you are still respected in society and your future is secured. There is no job in the private sector and even if there is, there is a lot of uncertainty,” says Sudhanshu.

Coaching operator Sanjay Kumar reveals that a huge number of aspirants are preparing for low-ranking jobs. “They come from rural areas and belong to poor families. Whoever has a lot of money, prepares for UPSC, engineering, medical and other sectors.”

As long as thousands of aspirants from rural areas continue to descend on cities like Patna in their quest for a government job, local coaching institutes will never run out of business.

(This appeared in the print edition as "Cul-de-sac of Dreams")

Umesh Kumar Ray is a Patna-based independent journalist