Guwahati: The famed Super 30, a coaching institute in Patna which prepares 30 poor students for the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) entrance exam free of cost, opened shop in Assam on Sunday.

"We are proud and very happy to announce the formal inauguration of Super 30 chapter in Assam. Super 30 achieved iconic stature because of its success rate," Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi told the sources after the launch of the Guwahati chapter of the institute.

"We are lucky to have them in our state. It is going to benefit students from the whole of the northeast," he added.

Like in the past, this year too, all 30 of its students in Super 30 Patna centre cleared the IIT entrance test, the dream of many young Indians.

The 10-month-long fully residential programme is being sponsored by India's premier exploration firm Oil India Limited (OIL).

"Thirty young IIT aspirants, all from economically backward families in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, will be part of the first batch and they were selected on the basis of a written test followed by an oral interview and group discussion," OIL chairman-cum-managing director N.M. Bora said.

Super 30 mentor and former police officer Abhayanand headed the interview panel along with other team members of the institute.

"This will be the first of its kind institute in the northeast and we are confident of achieving the same success rate like our Patna centre," Abhayanand said.

Super 30 is a highly ambitious and innovative educational programme running under the banner of "Ramanujan School of Mathematics".

It hunts for 30 meritorious talents from among the economically backward sections of the society and shapes them for India's most prestigious institution - the IIT. In the last seven years, it has produced hundreds of IIT graduates from extremely poor background.

"We had students from families of brick kiln workers, rickshaw pullers, landless farmers, roadside vendors and the likes. Today, most of them are doing well in life," Abhayanand said. IANS