NEW DELHI: If you are facing difficulties in getting an education loan, you can bank on Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram to help. Keen to enable students realise their dreams, the government has allowed them to directly contact the finance minister or finance ministry officials if a public sector bank denies an education loan without genuine reasons.
Public sector banks have been directed to ensure that criteria like location of residence or age do not come in the way of a student availing education loans.
"We have directed the banks not to create objections in issuing loans as long as the area of residence of the student and the bank branch are in the same district," a senior official in the finance ministry said. In other words, a PSU bank branch cannot reject an education loan application on the grounds that the residence of the student, the education institution or the guarantor is not in the same locality.
In many cases, the residence of an education loan applicant is not in the same place as the guarantor. "Banks usually insist that both the guarantor and the candidate should be residing under the area of a single branch, which is impractical. We have issued a directive to all the banks with an aim to remove this ambiguity," the official said.
Many students had written to the finance minister seeking his intervention and all the genuine cases have been resolved, he added. Now, an officer of joint secretary rank has been designated to address all education loan-related grievances addressed to the finance minister or the ministry.
PSU banks have also been told that age should not be cited as a criteria for rejecting education loans. This means that even a 35 or 45-year-old can avail an education loan.
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