Centre's overseas education loan scheme benefits 10,803 students in last 3 years

NEW DELHI: ‘Dr. Ambedkar interest subsidy on education loan’ has benefitted thousands of students, reveals information from the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment. The scheme intends to make overseas education affordable to the students belonging to the Other Backward Classes (OBC) and Economically Backward Classes. This will provide access to high-quality education to the historically marginalised.

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Funds being allocated for this scheme have consistently increased during the last three years. In the year 2020-21, a Rs 326 crore fund was released. In 2018-19 and 2019-20, the funds allocated were Rs 100 crore and Rs 260 crore respectively.

As regards, Maharashtra State has released a subsidy of an amount of Rs.4.78 crore during the last three years.

The scheme was helpful to 10,803 students who have benefited under the scheme during the last three years. In Maharashtra, the number of claims has increased over the past three years. So far, 1557 claims have been made by eligible students.

“All applications received from the eligible students as per the guidelines of the scheme have been considered.” read the press release.

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This information came from Sushri Pratima Bhoumikin, Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment through a written reply in the Lok Sabha.

Recently, Dharmendra Pradhan, Union Education Minister informed the Rajya Sabha that the number of students going abroad for higher education has dropped by over 55 per cent between 2019 and 2020.

"While 5,88,931 students went abroad for higher education in 2019, only 2,61,406 students had gone in 2020," Pradhan said citing the data from the Ministry of Home Affairs. The Ministry of Education (MoE) informed Parliament that it has been taking several steps to provide better higher education opportunities to students.