Student Credit Card Scheme Gets Bihar Cabinet’s Nod

On Wednesday, the state cabinet of Bihar agreed upon the Student Credit Card Scheme (SCCS). This being one of the seven resolves ( Saat Nischay) of CM Nitish Kumar is touted to be one of his ambitious schemes. This was accompanied with the gazette notification of  the new Bihar Prohibition and Excise Bill 2016 to be published  on 2^nd October.

This new SCCS scheme of the education department will enable all Plus Two (Class XII) pass out students to avail education loans up to the limit of Rs 4 lakhs. Anyone aspiring for higher education, who has secured an admission in a verified institution, will be eligible to apply for this loan. The government will provide all the support needed to make it possible and may also act as the guarantor in few cases.

The procedure under this scheme involves submission of loan application, followed by physical verification of documents by the district centers. Once done with the authentication, the loan application will then be forwarded to the bank with a 15 days’ time limit for approval. After the loan approval, a date will be issued to the student to visit and sign the loan agreement along with completing other formalities.

According to Ravi Mittal, the state finance ministry principal secretary , this scheme will help in reducing the hassle for students as they need not approach the banks directly and their loan applications will be taken care of by the  finance department. Apart from monitoring the application, the finance department will also be responsible for informing the students about the important dates via email, text messages or calls.

The banks have been asked to maintain the interest rate at base rate +2% and a memorandum of understanding between the bank and the Bihar government will be signed soon in this month. A target of giving loans to 5 lakh students has been set and it may increase depending upon the number of loan applications.