The scheme, one of Kejriwal’s prominent poll promises, has seen a mixed response in the four years of AAP rule.
New Delhi: There has been a lukewarm response this year to the Aam Aadmi Party government’s education scheme that provides loans to students who wish to pursue higher education in Delhi.
As of 13 June, the government received only 19 applications from students, a drastic dip from the 177 applications it received in the 2017-18 academic session. Of these 177, the government had approved 141 applications.
Even in the overall scheme of things, there has been a mixed response to the scheme. In its first year, the 2015-16 academic session, there were only 58 applicants and the loans were approved for all.
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In 2016-17, 424 applications were received, of which 65 were rejected and the rest approved.
“In the first year, a poor response was expected as the scheme was launched in September when the academic session had already started. But the poor response in the subsequent years has surprised us,” said a senior official at the Directorate of Higher Education.
Delhi’s deputy chief minister and education minister Manish Sisodia declined to comment.
A marquee poll promise
In the run-up to the February 2015 Assembly election, Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal had listed affordable higher education as one of his party’s marquee poll promises. Once it was elected, the AAP government quickly set about launching the scheme for higher education.
Under the initiative, the government stands guarantor for a loan of up to Rs 10 lakh. There is no interest on the loan amount for the period of the course work and an additional year after that. An interest of about 11 per cent is charged after this period.
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The scheme just requires the applicant to have passed the qualifying examination from Delhi. And as per the Directorate of Higher Education website, the students don’t need to pay any “collateral or margin money” for the loan.
To finance the scheme, the Delhi government, in an RTI reply, said it has set aside a “provision of Rs 30 crore as corpus fund for the Higher Education and Skill Development Credit Guarantee Fund Trust. After getting the necessary approval from the planning and finance department, it has transferred Rs 15 crore to the trust.