Jharkhand government offers Guruji Student Credit Card scheme

Meritorious students from financially weak families in Jharkhand no longer need to worry about education expenses. The Jharkhand government will offer the Guruji Student Credit Card scheme from July.

The Guruji Credit Card scheme will allow students to take a soft loan of up to Rs 10 lakh at a very low rate of interest and no mortgage. The scheme is aimed at encouraging the youth of the state to pursue higher education.

“A student will have to be a resident (domicile) of Jharkhand to avail the benefit of the scheme. An age limit will also be fixed for applicants of the scheme. The students will have to repay the loan within a certain tenure, may be 15 years,” said a source in the department of higher, technical education and skill development, Jharkhand.

The process of determining the service provider banks will be completed by June. The web portal for the scheme is expected to be operational by June 15.

A separate cell with a nodal officer from the departmental level will be set up on May 31 for the implementation of the scheme.

Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren has asked the committee constituted to fix the nitty-gritty of the credit card scheme to visit Kolkata and carry out a detailed study of the credit card scheme run by the West Bengal government.

The West Bengal Student Credit Card Scheme is designed to support students who want to pursue secondary, higher secondary, undergraduate and postgraduate studies. These include professional degrees and other equivalent courses in any school, madrasa, college, university or other affiliated institutes in and outside India. Students from Class X to those up to 40 years of age are eligible to apply for the scheme.

The West Bengal government recently directed banks to speed up the process of sanctioning and distributing loans under the state's student credit card scheme.