Jharkhand’s new coaching law explained: What the Bill changes for students, parents and institutes
Jharkhand has decided that coaching centres can no longer behave like a private economy running on public anxiety. On January 20, Governor Santosh Kumar Gangwar gave assent to the Jharkhand Coaching Centres (Control and Regulation) Bill, 2025, clearing the way for a state-wide regulatory framework for coaching institutes, PTI reports. The Bill, passed by the Assembly in August, will safeguard student interests, ensure safety, and bring transparency and minimum standards to a sector that has grown quickly and, in many places, casually.What matters here is not the intent (every law claims to protect students). It is the architecture: A portal-driven registration system, district committees with administrative authority, a state-level regulator headed by a retired judicial officer, and penalties large enough to hurt. Jharkhand is essentially telling coaching centres: You can run a business, but you will do it on record. Here is what the law changes, provision by provision — and where its pressure points lie.
Registration is no longer optional and the fine print blocks easy loopholes
The Bill requires all coaching centres to obtain mandatory registration through a government web portal within six months of the law coming into force, or within a timeline notified by the state government. That ‘within six months’ clause is the kind that sounds administrative until you realise what it does: It creates a clean dividing line between legal and illegal operators.It also insists that each campus of a coaching institute must have separate registration — whether the campus is within a district or outside it. In a market where brands often expand by planting multiple centres under one umbrella name, this forces the state to see the sector as it exists on the ground, not as it is described on brochures.The Bill goes a step further for franchise models. If an institute operates through franchise arrangements, the franchisor and franchisee carry joint responsibility for compliance. In other words: the brand cannot blame the local operator, and the local operator cannot hide behind the brand.And the optics are regulated too. Using the term “registered coaching centre” on signboards has been made mandatory — a small line with a big social implication. Parents now have a simple question to ask at the gate: registered or not?
A district authority will watch the street and a state authority will hear the appeals
The regulatory structure is two-tiered. At the district level, coaching centre regulatory committees will be constituted, headed by deputy commissioners. At the state level, a Jharkhand State Coaching Centre Regulatory Authority will be set up, headed by a retired judicial officer.The judicial chair is a signal. Coaching disputes tend to become messy quickly — fees, refunds, misleading claims, enrolment disputes. A retired judicial officer at the top is meant to give the appellate layer a certain procedural seriousness.The Bill also creates a time-bound remedy for bureaucratic silence. If the district committee fails to approve or reject registration within 90 days, applicants have the right to appeal to the state authority. This is important because delay is often the easiest way for the system to exercise power without taking responsibility for a decision.
Mental health support becomes a staffing rule, not a poster on the wall
One provision stands out for how specific it is: Coaching centres must appoint at least one mental health counsellor for every 1,000 students. Free counselling must be provided for at least 200 days. Counsellors must also be registered on a web portal.The language here is not abstract. It is operational: Ratio, service days, registration. That is the state’s way of reducing a common compliance trick — appointing a counsellor in name, not in function.Whether this translates into meaningful mental health support will, of course, depend on how “counsellor” is defined in implementation. But as written, the Bill has made wellbeing an enforceable obligation.
A digital identity trail for students and tutors
The Bill mandates registration of students above 16 years of age on a web portal, with each student receiving a unique CED-ID. Full-time and part-time tutors will also require mandatory registration.This is a structural shift for coaching. The sector has traditionally been comfortable with approximate numbers: approximate enrolments, approximate teacher strength, approximate outcomes. A portal-based registry is a way to force the ecosystem into countable reality. It also makes complaint-handling less slippery, because identities and affiliations can be verified against official records.
Coaching hours get capped
Coaching centres will be allowed to function only between 6 am and 9 pm. It is a blunt restriction — and blunt is sometimes the point. In competitive exam cultures, long hours become normalised until they turn into a badge of seriousness. The state is effectively saying: Seriousness has a cut-off time. The Bill also requires centres to provide basic gender-specific facilities. This gives district committees a legitimate basis to ask uncomfortable questions about basic campus conditions.
Fee transparency and refunds: Dragged out of ambiguity and into disclosure
Coaching centres must display the fee structure on notice boards and publish clear exit and refund policies on their websites. This is the section parents will care about most in practice, because it touches the everyday pain point: fees paid upfront, refunds denied later, rules discovered only when the student wants to leave. The Bill’s approach is simple: If you are going to take money, your terms must be visible, not negotiable by convenience.
Advertising claims face scrutiny: Results cannot be used as loose propaganda
The Bill prescribes action against institutes making false claims about ranks, marks or success rates, or indulging in misleading advertisements. It also regulates how coaching centres publish the results of successful students: They must mention the student’s CED-ID (Unique digital enrolment ID for coaching students) and course details, and obtain written consent from the student concerned.This clause targets the industry’s most profitable mythology — the marketing of success without verifiable context. It will not end the arms race of advertising, but it creates a compliance hook that regulators can use.
Bank guarantees and penalties are designed to sting
The Bill requires bank guarantees by area: Rs 5 lakh for centres within municipal corporation limits, Rs 1 lakh for centres in municipal councils or notified area councils, and Rs 50,000 for centres outside such areas.Penalties escalate up to Rs 5 lakh for the first offence, up to Rs 10 lakh for the second, followed by cancellation of registration. If a centre continues operating even after cancellation or blacklisting, legal action can be initiated under the Bhartiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita, according to PTI’s report.
The real test is not the Bill. It is the will.
On paper, Jharkhand has built a framework that tries to regulate what coaching centres do best: Grow fast, charge confidently, advertise aggressively, and operate with minimal outside oversight. Whether this law becomes a living regulator or a document that gets dusted off after a tragedy will depend on how the district committees work, how the portal functions, and whether penalties are applied without fear or favour.But even before implementation begins, the message is unmistakable: coaching in Jharkhand is being moved from the informal margins into the formal rulebook — and that changes the terms of the relationship between institutes, families and the state.(With inputs from PTI)
