With a combined teaching experience of over 80 years, these four educators have shaped the careers of doctors, engineers, and IIT graduates from across Northeast India — one student at a time.
When NEET and JEE aspirants from Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, and Arunachal Pradesh seek personal mentorship, they are seeking a teacher who possesses extensive experience, a deep understanding of the exam, and a genuine commitment to individual students. At SPM & Lalan’s Coaching in Guwahati, students find four faculty members whose results surpass any advertisement.
SPM & Lalan’s Coaching has been recognized as the Times of India Best Coaching Institute in Assam for Engineering and Medical and received the Times Stellar Brands award for two consecutive years—2019 and 2020. What drives those results is not a brand name or a large classroom. It is four exceptional faculty mentors who have committed decades of their lives to student success in Northeast India.
The Faculty Who Make the Difference
Not all coaching experience translates to mentorship quality. What follows are profiles of the four faculty mentors at SPM & Lalan’s, each of whom has spent between 18 and 22 years shaping the futures of students from across Northeast India.
Lalan Kumar Sir — Chemistry Expert, IIT Guwahati Alumnus (20+ Years)
Widely regarded as one of the finest chemistry teachers for JEE, NEET, and Assam CEE in all of Northeast India, Lalan Kumar Sir brings a rare combination of IIT-level conceptual depth and classroom-tested pedagogy. Having graduated from IIT Guwahati, he understands precisely what the nation’s toughest examiners are looking for—and teaches chemistry not as a subject to memorize but as a language to master.
His signature approach is concept-driven teaching: instead of drilling reaction mechanisms by rote, he builds the underlying logic so students can derive answers they have never seen before. This methodology has produced students who not only crack NEET and JEE but go on to thrive at some of the most prestigious institutions in the world. Over 20 years in the classroom, Lalan Sir has become the co-founder and institutional pillar around whom SPM & Lalan’s was built.
Students mentored: Arohan Hazarika, currently studying at IIT Bombay; and Mriganka Parashar, currently studying at MIT, USA.
“The best Chemistry teacher does not give you answers — he gives you the ability to find answers you have never seen before.”
Utpal Pathak Sir — Physics & Science, 22+ Years Experience
With over 22 years of teaching experience, Utpal Pathak Sir holds the distinction of being among the most experienced NEET and JEE faculty in the entire Northeast region. His tenure spans multiple generations of competitive exam reforms—from the pre-NEET All India Pre-Medical Test era through the NTA-led NEET format—giving him an unmatched understanding of how the exam evolves and what strategies consistently yield top ranks.
His crowning achievement as a mentor is guiding a student to AIR 1 in the ST category—the absolute pinnacle of NEET performance for students from Scheduled Tribe communities across India. This is not an outcome of chance. It is the product of a mentor who builds students’ confidence, plugs conceptual gaps patiently, and personalizes revision strategies to match each student’s individual learning pace. Utpal Sir’s classroom is known for zero tolerance of conceptual ambiguity: no student leaves a doubt unresolved.
It is worth pausing on this AIR 1 result. In a country of over a billion people, where lakhs of students compete for NEET every year, producing the single highest-ranked student in an entire category is a feat that most coaching institutes in India — let alone in the Northeast — will never achieve. It is a testament to what deeply personalised, experienced mentorship can accomplish.
Students mentored: Thaihamdao Halflongbar, AIR 1 in the ST Category, NEET; and a General Category student who secured AIR 73 All India.
Hridesh Sir — Mathematics & JEE Advanced Specialist, 21+ Years Experience
If there is one faculty member whose student rank list reads like a JEE Advanced leaderboard, it is Hridesh Sir. With 21 years of teaching mathematics and science at the highest competitive level, he has produced a remarkable density of top-200 all-India ranks in JEE Advanced—India’s most difficult engineering entrance examination. His student results are not one-off exceptions; they are a pattern repeated across multiple batches and years.
Hridesh Sir’s strength lies in what educators call “ceiling-raising”—the ability to take a student who is already performing well and push them into the top tier. His mock test analysis sessions, personalized error tracking, and high-difficulty problem sets have trained students to perform under the kind of pressure that separates AIR 5 from AIR 500. For Assam students aiming for IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, or IIT Kharagpur, Hridesh Sir’s classroom is the closest thing to a direct pipeline.
Students mentored: AIR 5, AIR 46, AIR 66, AIR 119, AIR 121, AIR 161, AIR 167, AIR 170, and many more top ranks in JEE Advanced—all from the same batches.
Nityanand Sir — NEET Science Specialist, 18+ Years Experience
Nityanand Sir rounds out SPM & Lalan’s faculty with 18 years of focused experience in NEET science coaching and a track record that spans both national JEE Advanced ranks and Assam state-level NEET results. His dual expertise makes him particularly valuable for students who are preparing for both NEET and the Assam Combined Entrance Examination (CEE) simultaneously — a common and demanding path for Northeast aspirants.
His mentorship style is characterized by structured revision cycles and what students describe as an uncanny ability to predict the types of questions that actually appear on the exam. A student under Nityanand Sir does not just study the syllabus—they study the exam. His understanding of NEET biology and chemistry patterns, combined with deep attention to individual student performance data, has helped students achieve results from Assam state ranks to national recognition in JEE Advanced.
Students mentored: Rinkle Jain, AIR 312 in JEE Advanced 2015; and Sajidur Rahman, State Rank 8 in NEET Assam 2018.
Why Personal Mentorship from Experienced Faculty Changes Outcomes
The four mentors at SPM & Lalan’s adhere to a philosophy that deviates from the conventional factory-model coaching approach: they view every student as a unique learning profile, rather than just a seat number. In a competitive exam like NEET, where the difference between getting a government MBBS seat and missing out can be as few as five marks, the margin is bridged not by more content—but by a mentor who knows exactly where you are going wrong and how to fix it.
Each of these faculty members has remained in Guwahati—in Northeast India—by choice through decades of opportunity. That rootedness matters. They understand the specific challenges facing students from Assam: the limited access to premium study environments, the psychological pressure of being far from national coaching hubs like Kota, and the need for mentors who are available, invested, and accessible.
Assam has 14 government medical colleges, including AIIMS Guwahati, with 1,650 MBBS seats competed for each year. Every seat is government-funded, and the competition is fierce. But the opportunity is real for those who prepare under the right guidance. That is precisely what students get at SPM & Lalan’s Coaching.
“Guwahati has produced AIR 1 NEET rankers, students at MIT USA, and dozens of JEE Advanced top-200 ranks — not because of geography, but because of the mentors who chose to teach here.”
Take Your NEET or JEE Preparation a Step Ahead
If you are a NEET or JEE aspirant from Assam or Northeast India, or a parent exploring the right mentorship, SPM & Lalan’s Coaching offers some of the most proven faculty in the region. Their track record is strong and well-documented. The team covers Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, and Biology. Everything you need to crack NEET-UG and JEE Advanced is here.
Call: 92879 82100 • Times Square Mall, 3rd Floor, Zoo Road, Guwahati – 781005
Disclaimer:
This article is published on the SPM IAS Academy website for informational and editorial purposes. SPM IAS Academy and Lalan’s Coaching are part of the same educational group, operating as sister units under a common management. The purpose of this content is to highlight the academic contributions and mentorship behind student success across the group’s institutions. This is not a third-party endorsement but an in-house feature intended to inform students and parents about our combined academic ecosystem.
