Before Kota there was Latur. The medium-sized Marathwada city, which was devastated by earthquakes twice, rebuilt its equity as one of the biggest coaching centers in Maharashtra with the “Latur Pattern”, attracting thousands of students from across the state. In the 1980s and 1990s, Maharashtra State Board used to have a merit list which was always full of students. Latur Division.
The city’s educationists like Dr. Janardan Waghmare and Anirudh Jadhav and institutions like Dayanand Education Society, Rajarshi Shahu College and Dayanand College created a system of rigorous high school and +2 education that focused on training students for various engineering and medical entrance examinations.
“This Latur brand has evolved over almost 40 years, and it cannot be destroyed by any one person,” says Satish Pawar, director of Vidya Aradhana Coaching Classes in Latur, one of the 165 coaching institutes in the city.
Also read: CBI interrogates RCC director’s son, detains Latur doctor in NEET-UG paper leak probe
Pawar is referring to the arrest this week of Shivraj Motegaonkar, 47, owner of Renukai Career Center (RCC), Latur’s largest coaching centre, in the NEET UG 2026 paper leak case. Motegaonkar’s RCC has branches in 9 districts of Maharashtra and this year 30,000 students have registered with it for NEET, CET and JEE coaching.
Latur at the center of NEET paper leak controversy
Decades after building a reputation for academic success, Latur is in the national spotlight for the rot plaguing its powerful coaching ecosystem. Of the 10 accused arrested so far in the case, six are from Maharashtra. Investigators believe that the criminal network extended from Pune, Nashik, Latur and Nanded in Maharashtra to Jaipur, Sikar and Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan, involving insiders associated with the examination system, coaching operators, middlemen, digital delivery chains and desperate parents willing to spend lakhs to guarantee success in these entrance exams. “This is not a geographical phenomenon,” writes development economist Varna Sri Raman. “The labor market for which the aspirant prepares is small. The labor market for which the aspirant prepares is very large…”.
She says in a paper for PolicyGrounds.press, an independent public policy and economic analysis platform, that coaching cities focus on “buyers willing to pay, sellers with technical knowledge, and digital infrastructure to get trades done quickly.”
A key figure in the CBI crosshairs is a retired chemistry professor Prahlad Vitthalrao Kulkarni Who taught for many years at Dayanand Science College, Latur. There Kulkarni became acquainted with Motegaonkar and started teaching at his coaching centre.
After his retirement in June 2022, Kulkarni moved to Pune where he started running coaching classes from his home. This year, NTA nominated Kulkarni as the subject expert and paper-setter. He immediately leaked the questions to students in his coaching class, and even 10 days before the NEET exam MotegaonkarAccording to CBI, his old Latur associate. When they arrested him on Sunday, investigators found the original NEET paper in Motegaonkar’s phone; This was sent to him by Kulkarni.
Moreover, a week before the NEET exam on May 3, Kulkarni had also allegedly given the same question paper to Manisha Waghmare, a Pune-based beautician who has been arrested by the CBI for attracting student-clients to people like Kulkarni and her neighbor in Pune’s Bibwewadi, NTA-designated Biology subject expert Manisha Mandhare, who also ran her own coaching classes in Pune, and who had Biology subject in the paper. Had full access to questions. In fact, it was he who introduced Waghmare to Kulkarni. Manisha Mandhare and Kulkarni have been described by the CBI as the “masterminds” behind the leak. He was arrested from Pune last week.
Although this is the first time that Latur’s coaching classes have allegedly been involved in clandestine activities, questions are being raised about the city’s success ratio in the recent NEET exams. According to the 2024 data published by the National Testing Agency (NTA), of the 24,496 students who appeared for NEET 2024 from Latur, 1,245 scored more than 600. Of them, 376 crossed the crucial threshold of 650 marks usually required for admission to government medical colleges.
Twenty-five students scored more than 700 marks and five crossed the rare 710 mark barrier. Neighboring Nanded also recorded astonishing numbers.
According to NTA data, a total of 719 students scored above 600, 281 crossed 650, 18 scored above 700 and four crossed 710. Overall, Latur and Nanded contributed 26.73% of all Maharashtra students scoring above 600 in NEET 2024, while it was only a fraction of the total candidates from the state. They contributed 25.41% of the students scoring above 650 marks and 20.97% of those crossing 700 marks.
Maharashtra was the third strongest performing state in India in NEET 2024. Of the 2,73,463 candidates who appeared for the exam, 7,616 students scored above 600, 2,585 scored above 650, 205 students scored above 700 and 68 scored above 710.
According to Satish Pawar, owner of Vidya Aradhana Classes, more than 30,000 students come to Latur every year as school and junior college students. Around 15,000 students from the city appear for NEET annually, while around 5,000 sit for the JEE exam.
Vaishali Deshmukh, education expert and director of Kaushalya Academy, says the city has built its economy around competitive exams, which involve two years of preparation for most. “The city has created an education industry worth even more ₹Around Rs 350 crore for competitive exams like NEET and JEE. Around 50,000 students come to Latur every year to prepare for medical and engineering entrances. If one considers the average annual coaching fees ₹The coaching business alone generates an income of around Rs 65,000 per student ₹Rs 325 crore annually,” she said.
Deshmukh said the economic impact extends far beyond the classrooms.
“Thousands of students migrating to the city every year have created a huge parallel economy encompassing hostels, paying guest accommodation, mess facilities, transport, bookshops, libraries, stationery shops, test-series providers, canteens and rental accommodation. Entire neighborhoods in Latur have developed around student life, with local businesses relying heavily on the academic calendar,” he said.
He said that while the ecosystem gave rise to generations of successful doctors and engineers, it also increased commercialization and pressure on students and parents alike.
Responding to attempts to link the entire “Latur pattern” to the alleged paper leak, Dilip Deshmukh, director of Rajarshi Shahu College in Latur, strongly defended the city’s educational heritage. He said, “For many in the region, the ‘Latur Pattern’ still represents a model of rural educational empowerment that has helped thousands of middle class and farming families become doctors and engineers through disciplined and affordable education.”
He said that despite the controversy and negative attention surrounding the alleged paper leak issue, thousands of students in Latur continued to prepare sincerely for the re-examination of NEET next month.
But investigators, who are still expanding their investigation, say the leaks suggest the work of a structured business network rather than isolated fraud. “The leak spread like an underground digital marketplace,” a CBI officer told HT, adding that Latur was a key source.
After Kulkarni shared the question paper with Manisha Waghmare, she shared it with Dhananjay Lokhande, a drain from Ahilyanagar, who shared it with his colleague Shubham Khairnar in Nashik. It was Khairnar who had contacted Gurugram-based middleman Yash Yadav to arrange buyers on April 29.
The same day, Yadav contacted Mangilal Khatik in Jaipur, who was concerned about his son’s chances in NEET and was willing to make the payment. ₹Rs 10 lakh for 150 questions matching the original paper. Khairnar had promised Yadav that he would provide 500-600 questions related to Physics, Chemistry and Biology which would “ensure admission into prestigious medical colleges.”
Once assured of payment, Khairnar transferred the PDF of the leaked papers via Telegram to Yadav, who forwarded them to Mangilal Khatik. Apart from providing these question papers to his son and two other family members who were appearing for this year’s NEET exam, Khatik also tried to recoup his investment by selling them to other acquaintances. CBI has found evidence of this from Khatik’s phone which was seized after his arrest.
