A Parliamentary Standing Committee reviewed the Union government’s free coaching programme for economically disadvantaged students who aim to appear in competitive examinations. The Committee’s key concerns focus on low enrolment against targets, weak uptake trends for free online coaching, and execution and transparency issues that affect outcomes and accountability.
What happened: enrolment and uptake figures cited by the Committee
The Union government’s free coaching programme had a stated target of 10,500 candidates over three years, but only 2,790 candidates were enrolled, which is about 26% of the target.
The Committee also highlighted low uptake for the free online coaching component, with beneficiary numbers changing as follows: 223 beneficiaries in 2023-24, 2,136 beneficiaries in 2024-25, and 431 beneficiaries in 2025-26.
On financial execution, the Committee noted that actual spending was much lower than the budgeted amounts in each year. For 2025-26, the ministry’s action-taken reply claimed actual expenditure of ₹9.86 crore.
Background: coverage of examinations and beneficiary categories
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