“While any coaching centre charges a student Rs 1.5 lakh per annum on an average, we charge them Rs 30,000.
While Raghavendra coaches visually-impaired and physically-challenged persons free of cost, those coming from financially unstable families are given coaching at a subsidised fee. Most of them come from Telugu and vernacular-medium schools after being shunned by mainstream coaching centres, says Raghavendra.
Many of these are students from underprivileged homes, and some of them are visually or physically challenged. Much like Bihar’s Anand Kumar, Raghavendra only takes up a single batch of 30-40 students and believes in giving them personal attention, mentorship and guidance. Till date, over 500 of his students have successfully cracked the exam to work in various government services, like IAS, IPS, Group 1 and 2 ranks and other cadres. Having exhausted his attempts at cracking the exam, he decided to put his knowledge into practice by establishing his own coaching centre in Dilsukhnagar in 2003. Today, Raghavendra is an educationist with over 20 years of experience, has worked as a journalist/columnist for leading publications like Eenadu, ETV, Andhrajyothi, been a film scriptwriter and has travelled across rural schools and colleges as a motivational speaker.īut one of the most important sectors that man behind the Akella Raghavendra Foundation has been working on is IAS coaching.