Chandigarh: 'Super 30' fame Ramanujan School of Mathematics (RSM), which is helping poor but brilliant students from Bihar villages to enter IITs, has joined hands with US-based Bhai Jaitajee Foundation (BJF) to provide an opportunity to poor children in Punjab to become a part of their programme.

For the first time, Super 30 has moved out of Bihar and is organizing an entrance test for Punjab students on June 5, the last date of applying for which is May 25.

"We are committed to provide an equal opportunity to Punjab students on merit basis. BJF has made all the arrangements of test at Patiala on June 5. They are exhaustively advertising about this test to spread awareness in even the remotest areas of the state," Anand Kumar, founder of RSM, told reporters here on Saturday.

"This year, besides Bihar, we are conducting tests in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Jharkhand. We have also decided to increase the seats to 60 for the Super 30 programme."

Any student of Class 11 or 12 (non-medical) or those who have already passed Class 12 (in 2009 and 2010), with parent's income not more than Rs.200,000 per annum can sit for this test.

In the last seven years (from 2003 to 2009), 182 out of 210 Super 30 candidates have got selected into the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). In 2008 and 2009, all the 30 students cracked the IIT entrance exam.

Harpal Singh, chairman of BJF, said, "We are focused on assisting the brightest students from Punjab's rural area to get access to higher education through such initiatives. We would meet the costs RSM would incur in training IIT aspirants from Punjab." IANS