With a view to promote education loans and to provide higher education to the aspiring students, on the occasion of Independence Day, the Union Government has launched a web based portal, www.vidyalakshmi.co.in. The portal has got multi utility features in it and students can really benefit from the services. It is one of its own kind of portals whereby the students can treat it as a single window for obtaining various types of information related to the education loans offered by banks and also about the various government scholarship programmes available. For the scholarships, students can click on the link of National Scholarship Portal provided on the website of Vidya Lakhsmi. The students can not only seek information on the education loans offered by banks but they can also directly apply for a loan through this website.
NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure Limited under the guidelines of various Government departments viz. Department of Financial Services, Indian Bank’s Association (IBA), Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Human resource Development and Department of Higher Education has developed and maintained this website.
What are the salient features of Vidya Lakshmi Website?
The website is a single window for answering a large set of queries arousing from the students. One can easily find the banks offering education loans, courses covered under the gamut of education loan schemes, rate of interest, eligibility conditions and the process of applying for the loan. One can directly apply for a loan from the portal. The salient features of the Vidya Lakshmi portal are as follows:
- Information on the education loan schemes which are offered by the various registered banks is available.
- One can also download the Common Educational Loan Application Form (CELAF) meant for students.
- The website has a facility whereby a student can apply for multiple education loans.
- Banks can directly download the student’s application forms from this website.
- Banks can upload the loan processing status of applicants on the portal from where applicants can take a look on it.
- The website offers a facility to the students whereby they can email their education loan related grievances or queries to the banks.
- The website provides a link to the National Scholarship Portal meant for seeking information and applying for government scholarship schemes.
Process of registering on Vidya Lakshmi Portal
The process is very simple, all you need to do is visit the website www.vidyalakshmi.co.in and click on the Register button and create a login ID or account and your registration will be complete.
Applying for education loan through Vidya Lakshmi portal
You need to logon to the website using your login ID and password. Thereafter you need to fill in the details of the Common Education Loan Application Form (CELAF). Filling this form is only one time procedure. By filling this form, you can apply for education loan to multiple banks or to the multiple schemes. As this form is prescribed by the Indian Banks Association (IBA), it is accepted by all the banks of Indian origin. Once the form is complete, you will have to submit it online. After that, you can start searching for various educational loan schemes which are offered by those banks that are registered on the portal. Here you need to note one thing that you can at max apply to three banks using CELAF form from this portal. The bank reserves the right to approve, reject or keep your application on hold. A bank usually rejects an application if you do not meet the eligibility conditions and an application is kept on hold when a bank needs to get some more information from the applicant. For disbursement of loan, you need to contact the bank from which your loan has been sanctioned for more details. Also note that the rate of interest on education loan will vary from bank to bank and from scheme to scheme.
Tracking status of education loan
If you have applied for an education loan using this portal, then you can easily track the status of your loan application. Logon to the website and click on the Application Status, once your bank will update your loan application status on the portal, you can see it.
List of banks registered on Vidya Lakshmi Website
There are so many banks that are registered on the portal for the purpose of getting applications for education loans. These banks include State Bank of India, Canara Bank, Union Bank of India, IDBI Bank, Vijaya Bank, Dena Bank, Corporation Bank, Central Bank of India, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Punjab National Bank and Kotak Bank. These banks are offering 22 different schemes for education loans.
In nutshell, the portal is one stop solution for education loan seekers.
