MHRD to revise subsidy for professional courses
New Delhi: New Delhi: As a part of the second 100-day agenda of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, the Human Resource Department (HRD) Ministry will soon bring to the Cabinet the student loan interest subsidy scheme. The ministry has decided that the parental income criteria for students to avail the subsidy for professional courses will now be Rs.4.5 lakh per annum. According to a senior official, "Though initially Rs.2.5 lakh income criteria was being mulled, the Planning Commission and the Committee of Secretaries to which it was later referred recommended that the income criteria be fixed in such a way that the scope and scheme gets widened. Therefore, a reasonable income criterion has been fixed. The revised scheme will be mulled in the Cabinet soon." Currently Rs.14,000 crore is being provided as loans to students annually under the existing higher education loan scheme. But, many poor and meritorious students do not apply for the loan considering the int...