Govt mulls subsidy on study loan

BY OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI

Aug. 8: The government is working on the education loan interest subsidy scheme. It will be a Central sector scheme for providing interest subsidy during the moratorium period on the educational loans taken by students belonging to the "non-creamy" layer for pursuing professional education in India.

This information was provided to the principal secretary to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during a review meeting to ascertain the status of the PM’s initiatives during the year in the field of higher education. It was also told that all the central educational institutions are implementing OBC reservations as per the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006, from this year onwards on a staggered basis and the necessary funds have been released to all of them.

All the IITs, the IIMs and Central universities covered under the act have started giving reservations to OBCs in a staggered manner. As a result of the implementation of OBC reservations, there is an increase of over 20,500 students in the intake capacity in the central institutions.