Govt cracks down on coaching institutes for misleading claims of alumni clearing IAS exam

Byju's IAS, Drishti IAS, Next IAS, Khan Study Group IAS, Analog IAS, Vajirao & Reddy Institute, Yojana IAS, ALS IAS, Vision IAS, Plutus IAS, Shankar IAS and Sriram IAS are among the institutes being probed. With notices issued to 20 IAS coaching institutes, some of the penalized institutes have already paid the fine while some are going to legally challenge it, even as many other hearings are underway.

CCPA's Commissioner & Special Secretary with the Department of Consumer Affairs, Nidhi Khare told CNBC TV18 that the CCPA is going to issue a set of detailed guidelines to ensure truthful depiction by coaching institutes. Explaining the modus operandi of the penalized institutes, she said that from the 10 lakh-odd students appearing for the UPSC exam, around 10,000 get selected through the prelims to appear for the mains. This is when many coaching institutes invite shortlisted candidates for free mock interview sessions for IAS mains, only to claim them as alumni later. As nearly 1/3rd of shortlisted candidates go on to clear the mains exam, institutes are able to get at least some candidates selected who had only availed of the free mock interview sessions conducted by the institute. She said that misleading advertisements may prompt aspirants to start thinking that unless they join an institute, they won't be able to crack IAS, JEE or NEET.