By Mr. K Srinivasan, Convenor, ELTF
Education-Loan-Task-Force (ELTF) has been getting lot of enquirers from different part of country seeking clarifications on 'Interest Subsidy Scheme'.
There are 2 types of Interest Subsidy scheme for
students pursuing education in India.
1. First Scheme. For Loans granted / disbursed on
or after 1st April 2009;
2. Second Scheme.. For
Loans granted / disbursed prior to 1st April 2009;
Eligibility..!
For both the Schemes, the eligibility is as
follows:
(a) The Education Loan should have been sanctioned under (INDIAN BANKS' ASSOCIATION) IBA Scheme;
(b) The
Loan should have been granted to pursue professional or technical courses in
approved Institutions;
(c) The
education should be within India;
(d) The
gross parental income should be less than Rs. 4.50 lakhs.
For Loans granted prior to 1.4.2009
In Febuary 2014, Mr. P. Chidambaram (then Finance
Minister) announced in the Parliament
that Government would reimburse 100% of the interest outstanding as on
31.12.2013.
Canara Bank was appointed as Nodal Bank to pool
the data. Interest component on all
eligible loans outstanding as on
31.12.2013 were paid by the Government to the Banks and credited to the loan
accounts.
In this scheme, the students who availed loan
prior to 1.4.2009 and who paid the interest regularly, were in a
disadvantageous position. Since interest
component was either nil or negligible, they did not get any benefit of the interest
subsidy.
Similarly the students who closed the education
loan account before 31.12.2013 were also not eligible to get interest subsidy.
Now this scheme is closed. Now the students cannot claim any interest
subsidy under this scheme. We are
writing this only for information.
For Loans granted / disbursed on or after 1.4.2009
Government of India (Ministry of HRD) provides
100% interest subsidy for the eligible students (as given earlier) for all the
loans disbursed on or after 1.4.2009 during the moratorium period.
If a loan has been sanctioned in 2007 for Rs.4
lakhs, to be disbursed at Rs. 1 lakh every year, the student is eligible for interest subsidy
for the disbursements made in 2009 (if it is after 1.4.2009) and 2010.
Moratorium period is the study period + one year
of 6 months after getting employment whichever is earlier.
Interest subsidy is available for either Under
Graduation or Post Graduation. From the
same family, brothers and sisters can avail the subsidy individually.
Students can avail the subsidy under only one
scheme. Students who availed subsidy
under the second scheme (loans prior to 1.4.2009) are not eligible for subsidy
under the first scheme.
Please go through the guidelines in this links
very carefully.
Problems faced by students..
The students were required to submit the Income
Certificate to the Bank to claim interest subsidy. Since the Banks did not intimate many of the
students in the early years, many eligible students did not get interest
subsidy.
It is the duty of the Banks to identify the
eligible students and advise them to get the income certificate. Also, it is the duty of the Bank to submit
the claim through the Nodal Bank portal to the Government of India within the
time stipulated by the Government.
Due to the
fault of many of the Branches, claims were not submitted in the past claiming
interest subsidy by the Banks.
Even the students who got subsidy, received only
a small portion of the interest debited by the Bank. In many cases, Banks failed to submit the
claim for few years.
For example, banks might not have claimed for
2009-10, but claimed for other years.
Also, they might have claimed for 2009-10, 2010-11, but might not have
claimed for other eligible years during the moratorium period.
ELTF has been taking up this issue through
supporting MPs in the Parliament and with the Government for the past 3
years.
The eligible students can check the status of
their interest subsidy through this link
Government of India opens the portal as one time
measure
In order to resolve the confusion of the past
disbursement of Interest Subsidy, the Government of India (MHRD) has now
permitted the Nodal Bank Canara Bank to
open their portal to enable the Banks to file the claim.
 |
| K Srinivasan, Convenor, ELTF |
Accordingly, all the pending claims, unclaimed
interest subsidy for the period from 2009-10 to 2013-14 can now be claimed by
the Banks.
Though the portal was supposed to have been
opened on 1st Sep 2015, due to some technical reasons, it is likely to be
opened next week. Please keep watching
this site and our Facebook page for latest updates.
What students can do..!
If you have any education loan disbursement on or
after 1.4.2009 (irrespective of your
date of sanction say 2008 or 2007) and if you are eligible for interest subsidy
as given in the early paras, then check your statement of account and also
through the link given above for the subsidy claimed by the Bank.
Please compare the actual interest debited by the
Bank during that Financial Year with the interest credited or not
credited. If the students find that
either interest subsidy for that year has not been claimed or shortly credited,
please write a letter giving the complete details and hand over to the
Manager. Please request the Manager to
claim the interest subsidy, when the portal opens.
If the students get a response from the Managers
that they have not received any instructions from the Head Office, the students
can send their request to the Chairman of the Bank, Regional Manaer and to the
Branch under Registered Post.
You can also mention that the Manager refused to
accept the request. You can request the
Managers to claim the interest as and when the portal gets opened, after
verifying the correctness.
If required, the students can meet the Regional
Manager and submit a letter personally.
Though it is the duty of the Bank Manager to identify and submit the
claim, to avoid any future confusion, ELTF suggests that students themselves
can verify and draw the attention of the Managers.
For the latest IBA guideline, please click
ELTF will not follow up individual cases. If the students find any difficulty, they
have to send complaint to Chairman of the Bank and to Reserve Bank of India.
Please do not write to ELTF for individual
issues. They can personally meet the
Regional Managers and sort out the issues.
This is an one time measure allowed by the
Government. Hence, students and banks
should avail the opportunity so that all the pending cases are resolved.
About the authorMr. K Srinivasan is Convenor at ELTF.
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