‘Rs 2.42 crore for IAS coaching but no data on success’

BHUBANESWAR: The state government has spent around Rs 2.42 crore on coaching of poor meritorious students for civil services exams since 2016-17 through universities and a private institute but has no data on the number of successful candidates, higher education minister Arun Kumar Sahoo told the assembly on Wednesday.
The higher education department had released Rs 1.82 crore to eight universities in 2016-17 and 2017-18 to run civil service coaching centres.
It had sanctioned Rs 30 lakh to Utkal University, Rs 10 lakh to Fakir Mohan University, Balasore, Rs 12.5 lakh to North Odisha University and Rs 26 lakh each to Berhampur University, Sambalpur University, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack, Rama Devi Women’s University, Bhubaneswar, and GM University, Sambalpur, for this puropose.
The department had inked an MoU with Dheya Educational Services Private Limited on March 7, 2019, to provide civil service coaching to candidates. In the first batch, 99 candidates had taken admission. The government had spent Rs 60 lakh, official sources said.
Recently, a CAG report had revealed that the coaching centre scheme could not take off in the Utkal University. The scheme was discontinued by the government in 2018-19.
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