Pramod Maheshwari was just another IITian who had dreams of flying to the US and having a satisfying career with a huge bank balance, till his mother expressed concern. “She said, ‘If you go now, you may come back 25 years later, and I may not be there then’,” Maheshwari narrates. And that statement from her has given us the man who went on to shape the careers of a vast majority of Indians. Maheshwari set up Career Point Infosystems in his hometown Kota in 1993, after graduating from IIT-Delhi in 1992 so as to stay close to his parents.
“A lot of students in my hometown had the potential and interest to pursue an engineering degree in the IITs but Kota did not have any facility to train and guide IIT-JEE aspirants back then, so I decided to set up a coaching centre,” he says. And just like any other beginning, Maheshwari’s was a small one too. In a godown that he took on rent from his father, Maheshwari started his classes with a student strength of 51. “My initial investment was just `24,000. I bought furniture, a blackboard and other equipment to set the classes in motion,” says the 41-year-old, who floated an IPO last year.
Today, Career Point Infosystems has a market capitalisation of `583 crore and has become the first tutorial provider to be listed on the National Stock Exchange and the Bombay Stock Exchange. “Many students from across the country come to Kota for our coaching classes, but finding proper accommodation is a struggle for them. Hence, in order to develop a residential facility for students we needed to raise some funds and the IPO is our way of doing it,” says the teacher who now is a full-time administrator of the empire he has built. “Career Point is setting up two universities in Kota and Himachal Pradesh and is already running an engineering college in Mohali and another engineering college in Rajsamand, Rajasthan, will take off next year,” he adds. Maheshwari comes across as a man with a plan. And with big plans like his, comes responsibility. “This IPO phase of Career Point is very interesting. There are great expectations from the investors and we are more accountable to the public. So being transparent in our dealings makes things simple for us,” says Maheshwari.
Having been a teacher since 21, Maheshwari has a long list of alumni who still track him down on Facebook and even invite him home when he visits their country. “Going to a mall in Kota is difficult for me. Everywhere I go, I have students queuing up to touch my feet to seek blessings. Once when I was in Mumbai airport, a grown-up man with his wife and child came to seek my blessings saying he was a student of mine at Kota,” recollects Maheshwari who was a teacher for 17 long years before settling down in a comfy office to manage a tutorial. But what does he think about the education system in India, which is giving room for coaching centres to crop up at every nook and cranny? “If we put down a rule that only BEd graduates can become teachers, we are missing out on a lot of talent that could otherwise be of great use. Tutorials exist because of deterioration of teaching methodology in schools,” he declares.
— susmita@newindianexpress.com