Concerted efforts by Madurai MP Su. Venkatesan and Madurai district administration, along with bankers, have resulted in distribution of educational loans worth ₹100 crore in Madurai district for the academic year 2021-22.
Talking to reporters here on Tuesday, Mr. Venkatesan said the attempt was to ensure that no eligible student, who had passed out Plus Two, was denied access to higher education for want of financial assistance.
“While the national average of educational loan has dipped to 54% in view of COVID-19 this year, coordinated efforts by the district administration and bankers have led to doubling of the amount given as educational loans in Madurai district,” he said.
Mr. Venkatesan said awareness of the educational loan mela was created among students of all 357 higher secondary schools in the district and three rounds of review meeting were held with bankers by Collector S. Aneesh Sekhar.
The bankers were told that all loan applications rejected would be scrutinised by the district administration. While 100 applications were rejected and they were being scrunitised, ₹99.21 crore-worth loans were issued to 1,095 students. As many as 319 applications were under process.
Stating that medical and paramedical admissions were yet to begin, Mr. Venkatesan exuded confidence that the total loan amount disbursed would cross ₹150 crore this academic year.
The Centre gave subsidy on the interest part for the four years of student days for educational loans.However, in case of delay in payment of subsidy by the Centre, the banks imposed penalty on the students.“I have appealed to the banks not to impose any penalty on the students for the Centre’s delay,” he said.
CPI(M) district secretaries M. Ganesan and K. Rajendran were present.