Gumla: A student from the Asur PVTG (Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group) in Gumla district has cleared the JEE(Main) in his first attempt, becoming the first from his community to achieve the feat, officials said.Rohit Asur, a resident of remote Jobhipat Asur settlement in Netarhat plateau under Bishunpur block and Class XII student of St Ignatius Inter-College, prepared for the exam under a free coaching programme, ‘Project Abhinav’, sponsored by the Gumla administration.Rohit secured 72.318 percentile against the ST category cut-off of 52.017. He scored 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 govt engineering college,” Rohit told. TOI.Another tribal student of the same school, Ajay Oraon, also cracked the JEE (Main) by securing 56.965 percentile.Both underwent one year of classroom contact coaching under the programme.Two general category candidates, Ankit Singh and Shlok Kumar Sinha, and an OBC candidate, Anjani Kumari, could not clear JEE(Main) by a low margin, officials said.A total of 20 students were given JEE coaching for a year, though the ideal duration is at least two years, officials said.“Other students of this batch did not appear for the exam, though they took coaching which started on Aug 16, 2024, and concluded on Aug 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”.
