Who this page is for
Maharashtra funds free coaching for competitive exams through four autonomous bodies, and each one selects private coaching institutes to teach the students it sponsors. If your institute is empanelled with one of them, or plans to apply in the next round, your test platform becomes part of what you are judged on. It has to hold up in a tender, protect sponsored students’ data and produce the reports the funding body asks for.
Akhaara is not affiliated with or endorsed by BARTI, MAHAJYOTI, SARTHI or TRTI. This page summarises public information checked on 27 September 2026. Always work from the current notice or tender document.
What these bodies fund
| Body | Students it serves | Coaching it funds |
|---|---|---|
| BARTIPune | Scheduled Caste students | MPSC State Services, Group B and C, Engineering and judiciary; UPSC; SSC; banking; police pre-recruitment |
| MAHAJYOTINagpur | OBC, VJNT and SBC students (non-creamy layer) | UPSC; MPSC; banking and LIC; railways; SSC; police pre-recruitment; JEE, NEET and MHT-CET |
| SARTHIPune | Maratha and Kunbi students | UPSC; MPSC State Services; SSC; banking |
| TRTIPune | Scheduled Tribe students | UPSC; MPSC; SSC; banking; police pre-recruitment |
From each body’s published schemes and notices. Programmes, seat numbers and exams change from year to year.
Students are usually chosen through an entrance test and then placed with empanelled institutes. Many schemes also pay students a monthly stipend; BARTI, for example, links its MPSC stipend to more than 80% monthly attendance.
A common policy has covered these bodies since October 2023. It caps how many students each body can sponsor, for instance 1,000 across all MPSC exams, and it was revised in July 2026. In 2024, MAHAJYOTI ran joint expressions of interest on MahaTenders to empanel institutes for the students of all four bodies, and its August 2025 tenders were all for online coaching.
What a tender asks of your test platform
Tender documents differ by body and by round, but the same platform questions keep coming up. MAHAJYOTI’s 2021 UPSC tender, for example, gave technical marks for online lectures and online tests, asked for a live demonstration of the online-test facility, and required institutes to submit test results, attendance and completion reports. Expect questions on five points.
- Data protection. Sponsored students share personal details with you. Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, you need their consent, a clear purpose and reasonable security, and your platform vendor has to support that in writing.
- Per-institute isolation. Sponsored students’ records should sit in your institute’s own space, not mixed with other institutes’ students or with a consumer app that markets courses to them.
- Service commitments. A scheduled test for hundreds of sponsored students cannot fail on the day. Ask for support hours, response times and availability in the agreement, not in a sales deck.
- Reporting. Funding bodies want evidence: who sat each test, how scores moved and how each batch is progressing. You should be able to export this yourself, without asking the vendor every month.
- A named legal entity. Tenders deal with registered organisations. Your vendor should contract as a registered company, issue GST invoices and sign data-processing terms.
What Akhaara provides
- A separate platform under your institute’s name. Your students’ data is kept apart from every other institute’s, and we never market courses to your students.
- A dated record of every test each student sat, with score, rank, percentile and topic-wise accuracy, which you can export at any time for your reports.
- Tests in English, Hindi and Marathi, including 1,07,429 Marathi question variants across 28 exams, with ready-made series for MPSC Group B and C, Police Bharti, banking, SSC and railways. Upload your own papers for State Services and UPSC.
- Exam-accurate test screens, so sponsored students practise on the interface they will see on exam day.
- A written service agreement with our registered company, GST invoices and data-processing terms. Your data belongs to your institute, and you can export all of it whenever you ask.
- Published prices. An institute running sponsored batches across several branches fits the Multi-branch band, ₹1,08,000 a year for Platform + Test Series at founding rates.
We don’t provide class attendance, biometric systems, stipend processing or live classes. Those stay with the systems you already use, and our exports sit alongside them in your reports.
We are new, and Akhaara has not yet been through an empanelment round. Send us the platform section of your tender and we will tell you in writing what we can provide and what we can’t. See features and pricing.
Rules to keep in mind
In October 2025, TRTI told empanelled institutes not to offer students tablets, cash or discounts beyond what a scheme provides, and not to use government logos or the bodies’ names in their advertising, with blacklisting as the penalty. Check your own agreement before you publicise results from a sponsored batch.
Maharashtra is also consulting on a draft Private Coaching Centres (Registration and Regulation) Act, 2026, which is not yet law. We summarise it on our MPSC and Police Bharti pages.
Questions institutes ask
Can we use Akhaara for students sponsored by BARTI, MAHAJYOTI, SARTHI or TRTI?
Yes. Sponsored students use your institute’s platform like any other batch. Check your empanelment agreement for any rules on which platform or tests you may use, and on how results can be shared.
What reports can we give the funding body?
Test-wise participation, scores, ranks and percentiles for each student, topic-wise accuracy and batch progress over time. You can export them whenever a report is due.
Is sponsored students’ data kept separate?
Yes. Your institute’s data is kept apart from every other institute’s, belongs to your institute and is never used to market courses to your students.
Does Akhaara handle attendance or stipends?
No. Akhaara runs tests, results and reports. Class attendance, biometric systems and stipend processing stay with the systems you already use.
What does it cost?
Prices are published. Platform + Test Series costs ₹32,400 to ₹1,08,000 a year at founding rates depending on your size band, plus GST.