JEE Advanced 2015: From Kolkata slum to IIT; Anand Kumar did it again

25 of the Anand Kumar’s Super 30 made it to the IITs this year. The highest score among the Super 30 qualifiers was that of Niraj Kumar Jha. The 18-year old lanky, buck toothed boy from Kolkata slum managed to score 270 marks out of a total of 360 marks – and achieving an All India Rank (AIR) of 1,217.

The youngest of the three siblings, Niraj had the support of his elder brother Saroj. His parents never finished school. Determined to educate their kids properly, they shifted to Kolkata and admitted their first-born Saroj to an English medium school.

Struggling to bear expenses, Jhas had to admit their daughter Soni and youngest son Niraj to a Hindi-medium school. Eventually, Saroj did engineering from a private engineering institute and get a good job in IT. He was the one to support Niraj at every step. He introduced Niraj to advanced concepts in Math and Science and got him a membership of Nehru Children’s library too.

Last year, Niraj had scored 173 out of 360 marks in JEE Main 2014 and managed a rank of #10,500 in JEE Advanced exam. This year, preparing for JEE Advanced with other students did the trick. He had to abstain from television or Internet for an entire year and took 30-40 mock exams.

Niraj is hoping to join IIT Kharagpur and study either Electronics or Electrical Engineering. His elder brother Saroj is counting in IIT Delhi or IIT Kanpur too. They hope that banks will provide them the necessary education loan easily.