The Uttar Pradesh Government has launched the Abhyudaya Scheme which will help student’s access free online and offline coaching classes for competitive examinations.
Classes start on Basant Panchami. Free online and offline coaching under the Abhyudaya scheme, Yogi Adityanath told students, would bring the kind of preparation that families had been sending their children to Kota for within reach at home, and at no cost.
Launching the scheme through video-conferencing, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that the scheme will be a guiding light for students preparing for competitions. He said that the government had decided to launch this unique scheme when over 30,000 students were stuck in Kota, Rajasthan after the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic.
“It was then the government had decided to extend the Kota-like facility within the state free of cost to students preparing for competitive exams. The scheme will help those students who can’t afford to get enrolled in coaching classes due to their poor financial conditions,” he stated. “I am sure students will be benefited greatly by the scheme in cracking competitive examinations to make a career of their choice,” he added.
The offline classes will begin from Tuesday and the first phase, offline classes have been set up at 18 divisions. Later, the facility will be made available in all 75 districts of the state for the convenience of students.
Around 4.84 lakh students registered themselves for the free coaching classes in just four days. Out of all the registered students 50,192 have been given the opportunity to attend offline classes via an entrance exam.
Selected students will be provided guidance by senior IAS, PCS and other officials. Principals of Army Schools will make arrangements to run classes for the NDA, CDS and CRPF and students will be trained by professionals for UPSC, UPPSC, NEET, JEE, Banking Services, B.Ed TET etc.
Adityanath launched the scheme by video conference on Monday, and coaching begins on Tuesday, 16 February, in the 18 divisions, with district-level centres to follow in a second phase, according to PTI. Besides classes, the scheme offers virtual doubt-clearing sessions, interview calls and career counselling. Adityanath recalled the time “when about 30,000 competitive exam aspirants were stuck in Kota and Allahabad”, PTI reported, and promised that “these classes will help aspirants achieve their goals.”
Abhyudaya scheme: Yogi Adityanath’s model on the ground
The scheme is run through the state’s Social Welfare Department, and the teaching is done largely by existing universities and colleges rather than private coaching firms. In Lucknow, the centre opened on 16 February 2021 on the third floor of the ONGC Center for Advanced Studies at the University of Lucknow, where the university’s Counselling and Guidance Cell runs it, according to a programme note published by the university.
Admission works through a test. The UP Academy of Administration and Management in Aliganj, Lucknow, sets an online entrance examination of objective questions, held twice a year, and sends the list of selected students to the Social Welfare Department, which contacts them for classes. Selected aspirants are also given a free tablet, the note says. Courses cover the UPSC and UPPSC examinations, NEET, JEE, the NDA and the CDS.
Teachers come from the University of Lucknow and city colleges including National PG College, KKC, KKV, IT College and Shia PG College; 55 of them were teaching in the scheme when the note was written. It describes the change in scale plainly: the programme began at divisional headquarters and is now run in every district of Uttar Pradesh. In Lucknow the project is headed by the divisional commissioner, Professor R P Singh of the English department coordinates it at the university, separate course coordinators handle the civil services and the NEET, JEE, NDA and CDS streams, and lectures are also posted on a YouTube channel.
What has happened since
The Lucknow note, dated June 2022, lists four batches at the university centre:
| Batch | Students coached in Lucknow |
|---|---|
| February 2021 | 1,944 |
| March 2021 | 1,417 |
| October 2021 | 1,400 |
| May 2022 | 1,567 |
The note names three students from the Lucknow centre who had by then qualified in the preliminary examination of the UPPCS, the state civil services.
By June 2023 the coaching institutes were running in all 75 districts and could be connected from one place, Adityanath said at an event in Lucknow, ANI reported. “Both physical and virtual classes are being conducted in this coaching institute,” he said, adding: “Our government has also associated subject experts from the state’s universities and colleges.” He said 23 candidates had been selected by the Union Public Service Commission and 95 by the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission, against three or four under earlier government coaching programmes run between 1998 and 2020.
The scheme has also grown a residential strand. Six candidates linked to it cleared the Civil Services Examination 2025, two from a residential coaching programme and four from a mock interview programme run by the Social Welfare Department at Bhagidari Bhavan in Gomti Nagar, Lucknow, according to PTI, citing a government statement of 6 March 2026. The highest placed, Vimal Kumar, ranked 107th. Residential students receive free accommodation, food, library access and study material, the statement said.
Five years after the launch, the Abhyudaya scheme, Yogi Adityanath’s government says, runs in every district, well beyond the 18 divisional centres it opened with. Kota, which prompted the scheme, has seen changes of its own: Rajasthan has since moved to build an online register of coaching students in the city. Congratulating the 2025 candidates, Asim Arun, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Social Welfare, described the aim of the Abhyudaya scheme, Yogi Adityanath’s free coaching programme for exam aspirants, as quality coaching and guidance for talented young people from economically weaker backgrounds, PTI reported.
