Gumla: A student from the Asur Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) in Gumla district has cleared the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main in his first attempt, marking a historic first for his community, officials confirmed.
Historic Achievement for Asur Community
Rohit Asur, a resident of the remote Jobhipat Asur settlement in the Netarhat plateau under Bishunpur block, is a Class XII student at St Ignatius Inter-College. He prepared for the exam under a free coaching initiative called 'Project Abhinav', sponsored by the Gumla district administration. Rohit secured a percentile of 72.318, well above the ST category cut-off of 52.017. His subject-wise performance included 89.482 percentile in mathematics, 74.593 percentile in physics, and 26.031 percentile in chemistry.
"I thank the district administration for starting the free coaching programme, which helped me immensely in clearing JEE (Main). I hope to get admission in a good government engineering college," Rohit told TOI.
Another Tribal Student Succeeds
Another tribal student from the same school, Ajay Oraon, also cracked the JEE Main, securing a percentile of 56.965. Both students underwent one year of classroom contact coaching under the programme.
However, two general category candidates, Ankit Singh and Shlok Kumar Sinha, and an OBC candidate, Anjani Kumari, missed the cut-off by a narrow margin, officials said. A total of 20 students were given JEE coaching for a year, though the ideal duration is at least two years, according to officials.
Coaching Program Details
"Other students of this batch did not appear for the exam, though they took coaching which started on August 16, 2024, and concluded on August 31, 2025. The students, however, didn’t get classroom contact facility before the crucial examination," said chemistry teacher Anil Kumar Sahu.
Hailing the initiative, Adim Janjati Yuva Jagriti Abhiyan president Bimal Asur said, "Nobody from our community had cleared the JEE by preparing at the local level. The district administration provided a platform to tribal students." District superintendent of education Noor Alam Khan called it "a big achievement".
