A city start-up, that took the initiative to help poor students access digital academic coaching to crack competitive examinations like IIT/JEE and medical entrance tests, has come out with an app to do just that.

The start-up, eGyan Sagar, incubated at the state IT department’s Atal Behari Vajpayee Innovation Lab (ABVIL), launched the app of the same name on Monday to enable financially marginalised students access coaching while preparing for common entrance tests.

The best part is that it is free.

“We have been running an online coaching course for quite sometime now. We have about 5,000 students on rolls. All of them pay to access resources. But beneficiaries of our new app will get the same benefits free of cost,” said Abhijit Verma of eGyan Sagar.

eGyan Sagar plans to extend the offer to 1,000 financially marginalised students by Jharkhand Statehood Day observed on November 15.

The start-up may be based in Ranchi, but its students are spread across states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, besides cities like Delhi and Bangalore.

“We will provide students with notes and lectures in association with Pratyush Classes, a local coaching centre run by Pratyush Kumar Singh, an IIT-Kanpur alumnus,” Verma said. Verma’s firm has been providing technology support to some coaching institutes for the past two years. “We have been discussing our project with Singh for quite sometime. Finally it has materialised now,” he said.

The idea of the start-up, eGyan Sagar, to provide online coaching was among the business ideas selected for incubation at ABVIL earlier this year.

“This is a very good initiative which will benefit financially backward students by helping them prepare for competitive exams,” said principal secretary in the state IT department Rajiv Arun Ekka, who formally launched the app at ABVIL on Monday.

About 20 poor students at the launch were also given access to the free online coaching resource.