The scheme is aimed at benefiting students who wish to pursue secondary, higher secondary, undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Source: Shutterstock
West Bengal government has directed banks to expedite the process of sanctioning and distributing loans under the state's student credit card scheme.
In a meeting between the finance department and the State Level Bankers' Committee, chief minister Mamata Banerjee's principal chief advisor Amit Mitra asked lenders why there were “at least 16,000 provisionally sanctioned cases pending and another 51,000 applications under the scheme lying unattended at different banks”.
According to a source in the state secretariat, the bankers mentioned that the sanction and disbursement of loans got delayed primarily because of lapses on the part of applicants.
The Student Credit Card Scheme, launched by the West Bengal government’s higher education department, enables students to take a soft loan of up to Rs 10 lakh for higher studies.
Chief secretary HK Dwivedi and state higher education secretary Manish Jain were also present in the meeting held on April 5 in Kolkata.
Dwivedi urged the bankers to quickly sanction loan applications, which are stuck in banks even after getting clearance from the state government, by April 30.
He also directed the school education department to clear the applications which are lying with them by May 31.
Notably, Mitra had written to the banks last week, questioning the delay in sanction and disbursement of such loans.
The scheme is aimed at benefiting students who wish to pursue secondary, higher secondary, undergraduate and postgraduate courses.