Fighting flood to look for IIT seat

PATNA: The craze of ‘Super 30’ could be seen on Sunday, when around 10,000 aspiring IITians appeared at an entrance exam for selection in this group of economically under privileged students, which has a great success record, with most of them making it to the premier engineering institutes of the country. The size of the crowd at the St Michael’s High School here, appeared to have taken even its promoter, ADG (HQ) Abhyanand and mathematics wizard Anand Kumar by surprise, as police had to monitor the entry of candidates to the examination hall. "We had to hold the entrance examination in several batches, right from 7 am to 4 pm, each of two hours duration," said Anand Kumar apparently surprised by the response. "Despite the fact that we had not advertised the date and venue of entrance examination and just gave away application forms to students approaching us, the response was overwhelming," he said. Kumar said he was surprised to find students coming not only from all corners of Bihar but also from Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Rajasthan. "Students from Samastipur and other flood-hit districts had to virtually swim across to reach the venue," he added. He said the aspiring candidates had to answer 20 questions each from Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics, in two hours. "We had prepared five sets of question papers," he said. ADG Abhyanand himself spent quite sometime in invigilating at the centre. However, this year the ‘Super 30’ module will undergo a change. "This time we will select 100 to 150 candidates. We will bifurcate the successful candidates and prepare some for the IITs, some for the NITs and others for engineering colleges in Bihar," remarked Kumar. About five years back, Anand Kumar and Abhayanand (IPS), floated the concept of ‘Super 30’ picking up bright students from economically depressed sections making them undergo rigorous coaching for six months before the IIT-JEE exams. In 2003, 18 of the 30 made it to IIT. The success rate kept shooting and this year 28 of the 30 made it to the merit list. However, the success of Super 30 has been marred by controversies as other coaching institutes claimed that some of the successful candidates were actually theirs. A disgusted Abhyanand declared the winding up of ‘Super 30’ project, but protests from students and parents forced the promoters to review their decision.