New Delhi, March 10 (IANS) An outlay of Rs 3,600 crore under the PM Vidyalaxmi scheme has been made from 2024-25 to 2030-31 for providing 3 per cent interest subvention benefit for up to 7 lakh fresh students seeking guarantor-free education loan for high education, the Lok Sabha was informed on Monday.
Minister of State for Education Sukanta Majumdar said in a reply that all the OBCs/SCs/STs, male and female students getting merit-based admission in top Quality Higher Education Institutions (QHEIs) for degree/diploma programmes can avail this benefit.
The Minister of State said the main objective of the PM Vidyalaxmi, a central sector scheme launched on November 6, 2024, is to ensure that no student is denied the opportunity to pursue higher education due to financial constraints.
Under the scheme, collateral-free and guarantor-free education loan is provided to all students, including those from Bihar and Andhra Pradesh, who get merit-based admission in top QHEI.
Majumdar said for students with annual family income up to Rs 8 lakh, the scheme provides 3 per cent interest subvention on loans up to Rs 10 lakh. Up to one lakh fresh students, not getting any other scholarship or interest subvention on education loan, will get this interest subvention, he said.
In case the number of fresh applicants for availing the benefit of interest subvention exceeds one lakh, all-India slots will be distributed across states based on population to ensure equitable inter-state representation, which translates to 10,302 slots for Bihar and 3,428 for Andhra Pradesh, he said.
He said a dedicated online platform, the PM Vidyalaxmi portal has been developed on which students can apply for the education loan as well as interest subvention, through a simplified application process to be used by all banks.
The portal is for all Public Sector Banks, Private Banks, Regional Rural Banks and Cooperative banks. All these measures aim to create widespread awareness about the scheme and help eligible students, including those from rural and underprivileged areas to avail the benefits of PM-Vidyalaxmi, said the MoS.
The QHEIs selected under PM-Vidyalaxmi include higher education institutions which are in the top 100 ranks in the overall/category-specific and/or domain-specific rankings in the latest list of National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), he said.
–IANS
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