Pune-based NGO Lift For Upliftment provides free NEET coaching for tribal students to break generations of poverty. Founded by Dr Atul Dhakne, this volunteer-driven initiative empowers underprivileged youth from remote regions like Melghat and Gadchiroli to clear medical entrance exams, creating first-generation doctors and transforming rural healthcare access across Maharashtra.
In India, where coaching has increasingly become the gateway to competitive exams, the dream of becoming a doctor often depends less on talent and more on affordability. For students from tribal and low-income communities, access to medical education remains deeply unequal. While nearly 65% of India’s population lives in rural areas, representation from these regions in medical colleges remains disproportionately low. In tribal districts such as Gadchiroli and Melghat, where healthcare shortages are severe, the absence of local doctors further deepens the crisis.
The “Super 30 for NEET”
Lift For Upliftment (LFU) is working to change this through what many now call the “Super 30 for NEET.” Founded in 2015 by Dr Atul Dhakne and a group of volunteers, LFU provides completely free NEET coaching, mentoring and residential support for students from underprivileged, rural and tribal backgrounds across Maharashtra. Its mission is simple but radical: “Shall the children of the poor not become doctors?”
The organization runs multiple programs including its Pune Main Branch, the Ulgulaan tribal residential coaching centre, and Sarvodaya, a foundation program for tribal school students. LFU covers coaching, study materials, hostel accommodation, mentorship and even post-admission support – removing the financial barriers that prevent talented students from pursuing medicine.
Powered by a Volunteer-Driven Model
What makes LFU especially unique is its volunteer-driven model. The organization operates with 100% volunteer faculty, including doctors, medical students and professionals who collectively contribute thousands of teaching hours every year. Many alumni later return as mentors themselves, creating a self-sustaining cycle of upliftment.
Remarkable Ground Impact & Real Stories
Its impact has been extraordinary. Since inception, LFU has coached nearly 500 students, leading to over 300 medical and allied healthcare admissions, including 122 MBBS selections. Tribal students from regions such as Melghat and Gadchiroli, the areas historically underrepresented in medical education, now make up a growing share of these success stories.
One such student is Shantilal Kasdekar, the son of a bonded labourer from Melghat. With no access to coaching, financial resources or even exposure to medical careers, Shantilal joined LFU’s pioneering tribal residential batch Ulgulaan in 2017. Through intensive mentoring, free coaching and long-term support, he cleared NEET and secured admission to Mumbai’s prestigious Nair Hospital Medical College. Today, he is completing his internship and hopes to return to serving tribal communities like his own.
Social Justice and Generational Transformation
But LFU believes the impact extends far beyond individual success. Its model is creating first-generation doctors, shifting aspirations within tribal communities and building long-term healthcare leadership where it is needed most.
Its work raises a powerful question: what happens when India stops seeing medical education as a privilege and starts treating it as a pathway for social justice and generational transformation?
The Logical Indian’s Perspective
Medical education must never remain an exclusive privilege reserved for those who can afford expensive private coaching hubs. Across rural and tribal India, millions of talented youth are systematically excluded from competitive examinations simply due to financial constraints and a lack of exposure. Initiatives like Lift For Upliftment prove that when underprivileged students are provided with free, high-quality mentorship and residential support, they do not just clear exams, they rewrite their family destinies and transform entire communities.
By empowering local tribal youth to become doctors, LFU addresses a double crisis: breaking generational poverty for marginalized families while directly solving severe healthcare shortages in chronically underserved regions like Melghat and Gadchiroli. True equity in healthcare and education requires moving beyond basic charity toward sustainable, community-led empowerment. When first-generation doctors return to serve their native roots, social justice ceases to be an abstract ideal and becomes a lived reality.
How can government bodies, educational institutions, and civil society co-invest in scaling grassroots coaching models to ensure every tribal district in India nurtures its own healthcare leaders?
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