If you are a student and planning to pursue a self financed course, you needn’t worry about educational loans any more. The finance ministry has announced the launch of a one-stop portal www.vidyalakshmi.co. in. Here, students can apply for education loan from multiple banks by filling up just one form.
As per the finance ministry statement, this new website would relive you of taking all pains of visiting different banks for loans. Developed jointly by NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure, finance ministry, Department of Higher Education, human resource development ministry and Indian Banks' Association (IBA), the portal is in line with finance minister Arun Jaitely's Budget promise of developming a fully IT-based Student Financial Aid Authority to administer and monitor scholarship as well as Educational Loan Schemes through the Pradhan Mantri Vidya Lakshmi Karyakram (PMVLK) "to ensure that no student misses out on higher education for lack of funds."
Through the Vidyalakshmi portal, students can apply for a loan to multiple banks, track their applications and avail of various loan schemes.
"Thirteen banks have registered 22 Educational Loan Schemes on the Vidya Lakshmi Portal and five banks -- SBI, IDBI Bank, Bank of India, Canara Bank and Union Bank of India -- have integrated their system with the portal for providing loan processing status to students," the finance ministry said in the statement.
"This initiative aims to bring on board all banks providing educational loans. It is expected that students throughout the country will be benefited by this initiative of the government by making available a single-window for access to various educational loan schemes of all banks."