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Cabinet approves PM-Vidyalaxmi scheme to provide financial support to deserving students

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the PM-Vidyalaxmi scheme to provide monetary support to meritorious students so that financial constraints do not prevent them from pursuing quality higher education, Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said.

As per the scheme, anybody who gets admission in Quality Higher Education Institutions (QHEIs) will be eligible to get collateral-free, guarantor-free loan from banks and financial institutions to cover the full amount of tuition fees and other expenses related to the course. An outlay of Rs 3,600 crore has been approved for the scheme under which education loans will be facilitated to students securing admissions in top 860 QHEIs of the country based on the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF). This will cover more than 22 lakh students every year.

The scheme will be applicable to the top QHEIs as determined by the NIRF rankings - including all HEIs, government and private, that are ranked within the top 100 in NIRF in overall, category-specific and domain-specific rankings, state government HEIs ranked in 101-200 in the NIRF and all central government-run institutions.