Kota stares at financial crunch as pandemic may keep students away

Kota, India’s coaching hub, might be staring at a slump quite different from the one that other urban centres are facing.

The city — that transformed from an industrial town into a go-to place for students preparing for highly competitive entrance examinations for admissions to engineering and medical colleges — might not see students return in droves even after the restrictions on inter-city and inter-State travel are eased.

That does not mean students will not enrol for coaching. Thousands have already signed up for online classes and distance learning programmes that these institutions have rolled out.

The coaching industry is hoping that students who start the new session via online tutorials will subsequently return to the city and classrooms as the travel restrictions are eased and classroom instructions are allowed.

Peak season

The lockdown came at a time when the institutions were winding up the previous academic session, with final revisions for students appearing for the competitive examinations scheduled for April and May, and preparing for a new session. Similar to the school academic year, new coaching sessions begin in April.

And, this is the month when students and their parents land up in the city, scouting for appropriate hostel accommodation. This is also one of the months when Kota’s numerous budget and luxury hotels do brisk business. So do the auto-rickshaw drivers who double up as local guides to the visitors.

However, this April, the coaching institutions are spending most of their resources looking after students of the previous academic year who had opted to stay back to continue with their revisions and appear for the examinations at the centres in Kota. It is estimated that more than 40,000 students were in Kota when the lockdown was announced. As of Monday evening, about 25,000 students were still there, waiting for their respective State governments to organise their evacuation.

Empty rooms

The lockdown, extended travel restrictions, enforcement of social distancing norms as well as fears of a fresh wave of infection might mean fewer students may come to Kota for coaching classes the coming academic year, opting instead for online instructions or enrolling at centres closer home. That will prove to be a huge setback for those running hostels and paying guest (PG) accommodations in Kota.

The construction boom in Kota for the past two decades has been dominated by the building of tall towers offering hostel accommodation to students, including single occupancy rooms. In Kota’s Indraprastha Industrial Area, the city’s largest industrial hub, many enterprises have either sold their plots at a premium to coaching institutes and their associate companies to build their campus and hostels or shut their industrial units to build and run their own hostels on the plots.

In a few instances, industrial units and hostels share the plot. Individual homeowners on both sides of the arterial Jhalawar Road added rooms to their houses to take in students as PGs. Business was good as the number of students coming in grew every year.

Rental income

Now, these hostels and PG accommodations stand to lose rental income for a good part of the academic session. For the 2019-20 academic year, about 1.75-2 lakh students had enrolled at the over dozen coaching institutes. Students pay ₹7,500 to ₹15,000 a month for a room, meals and laundry services, depending on the area and quality of accommodation.

The coaching institutes were also instrumental in the development of areas in the city’s outskirts, as they set up campuses and hostels there, helping to drive up capital values and rental yield. Several of the city’s businessmen lamented the over-construction of the past few years when this writer visited Kota last September. Now, they fear many hostel owners and others who depend on rental income may face a financial crunch.

Income loss for service providers

Other than those running hostels and PG accommodation, businesses providing meals, dine-in and takeaway restaurants, and stationery, reprographic and IT support services, will see their incomes plunge if students stay away. Auto-rickshaw and cycle-rickshaw drivers, who ferry students between their hostels and campuses, as well as support staff who clean the rooms and do the laundry, are set to see a similar plight.

While the city hopes the students will return in droves, much depends on how the pandemic will pan out.