Aakash to Double Engineering Test Prep Revenue in 3-4 Years

New Delhi, Jan 29 (PTI) Test preparation firm Aakash Educational Services sees the potential to double revenue from engineering courses in the next three-four academic years, a top official of the company said on Wednesday.

Speaking at the launch of new courses for IIT-JEE, Aakash Educational Services Limited (AESL) MD and CEO Deepak Mehrotra said that the growth of the company's business is directly related to expansion of new IITs and medical institutes.

"Our medical student count is 70-72 per cent of total count and our 76-78 per cent would be coming from medical courses. There is huge potential to grow revenue from engineering courses. The opportunity is to double this revenue in the next 3-4 academic years," Mehrotra said.

Mehrotra announced the launch of a new artificial intelligence supported test preparation programme for IIT-JEE, Aakash Invictus. The campus programme under the course will initially be available in 25 cities while the online programme will be available across the country.

"We have a team of 500 faculty members that will handle this programme. While we have capacity to intake 30,000 students, we will limit it to between 20-25 thousand," Mehrotra said.

Aakash will select students for Aakash Invictus through a specialised entrance test. It will be a two-year programme for students joining in 11th standard or a three-year programme for those in 10th.

"The online module will be available at 20-25 per cent lesser price. The support for online courses will be designed as per the response," Mehrotra said

The programme will be available at 25 cities -- Delhi NCR, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Meerut, Prayagraj, Kanpur, Varanasi, Jaipur, Kota, Patna, Ranchi, Bokaro, Kolkata, Durgapur, Bhubaneswar, Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Indore, Bhopal, Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore.

Mehrotra said that during a study, AESL found that parents are very unhappy with coaching factories being set-up around a few cities.

"They have now started turning into suicide factory. They want a reliable trusted brand closer to their home where they can send their child. The other thing is that a lot more girl children are looking to join professional programmes. The parents are looking to send the girl child to a nearby place. That's why we have come with Aakash Invictus," Mehrotra said.

AESL has a pan-India network of over 315 centres with more than 4 lakh students being enrolled.

Mehrotra said AESL has plans to expand its services in 125 cities this year that will be covered by a mix of physical classrooms, hybrid and full-fledged digital courses.