IELTS coaching centres, immigration consultancies and study-abroad agents are among the largest businesses in a Punjab district town, and in some towns they occupy most of the main road's commercial frontage.
The industry is only partly regulated. Punjab has legislation on travel agents and licensing requirements, and unlicensed operators are numerous and are the subject of a continuous stream of fraud cases.
The frauds take standard forms: fees taken for visas that do not exist, admissions to colleges that are not what they were represented as, and the irregular routes described elsewhere on this site.
The legitimate part is large and effective: Punjab sends more students to Canada than any other Indian state and the pipeline works.
The money comes from land, sold or mortgaged, and the transfer of Punjabi agricultural capital into foreign tuition fees is the largest single flow of money out of rural Punjab and has never been measured.
The visible economy of a Punjab town is now the business of leaving it.
Every district town has a street of immigration consultants, IELTS centres, currency dealers and document agents, and the whole cluster runs on one product.
The regulated part is licensed under the state's travel agents legislation. The unregulated part is larger and is where the fraud cases come from.
The money involved is very large. A study visa package costs more than most families earn in several years, and it is financed against land.