Take student loan, will consider waiver: Nitish
2 min readPatna: Chief minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday asked students to avail the benefit of the Student Credit Card (SCC) scheme fearlessly by taking education loans and said the government will consider waiving off credit in future if anybody is unable to repay the loan after completing his or her studies.
Nitish was speaking after inaugurating the newly-constituted Bihar State Education Finance Corporation (BSEFC) in Patna.
It will take care of providing loans of up to Rs 4 lakh under the SCC scheme to students who want to continue their education beyond Intermediate.
“We have established this finance corporation so that students can benefit from it fearlessly,” the chief minister said at the function.
“This is your corporation and the government is yours. You have to repay the loan after completing your studies. If needed, the government will consider waiving it off for those who are unable to repay the loan.”
Deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, education minister Krishna Nandan Prasad Verma, chief secretary Anjani Kumar Singh, finance department principal secretary Sujata Chaturvedi and several others were present on the occasion.
BSEFC was constituted after commercial banks were going too slow in disbursing loans under SCC, a scheme under Nitish’s “seven resolves for a developed Bihar”.
It is meant to empower the youth by financing their higher studies.
“Under SCC scheme, Class 12 pass students can get loans for further education – be it technical or general. Matric pass students can also avail of the facility for financing their polytechnic studies,” the chief minister said.
“Banks were causing much delay in disbursing SCC loans despite accepting their necessary conditions. Altogether 18,242 applications were approved of which loans to 12,050 applicants were sanctioned. This was the reason that we decided to create our own finance corporation,” Nitish said.
Under SCC, the students will have to pay 4 per cent interest on the loan they have taken.
It will be just 1 per cent for differently-abled, transgender and female students.
The corporation has also been connected with District Registration and Counselling Centres (DRCC) at which students submit their applications for education loans.
The chief minister said SCC’s aim is to increase the gross enrolment ratio, which used to be 13.9 per cent after Class XII, but has gone up to 14.3 per cent after the scheme was launched.
“The national ratio is 24 per cent and we want to take it to 30 per cent and later increase it to 35 and 40 per cent,” Nitish said.
Courtesy: The Telegraph
