Poor families belonging to minority communities can henceforth avail housing loan up to Rs. 5 lakh at an interest rate of 6 per cent per annum.
Disclosing this to reporters at a press conference here on Monday, Chairman of Karnataka State Minorities Development Corporation Masood Foujdar said there were a large number of homeless families belonging to the minority communities. “The families having an annual income of less than Rs. 3.5 lakh are eligible for the loan facility to build a house,” he said.
The scheme has already received government approval and is likely to be covered in the State Budget to be presented by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on March 13.
The housing scheme is a modified version of an earlier scheme announced by the government that proposed to provide interest subsidy on housing loans obtained by minority communities from nationalised banks. The government had proposed to reimburse up to Rs. 1 lakh of the interest component on the loan.
“But, the scheme failed to take off. Though we received applications, the nationalised banks did not sanction the loans to the applicants for various reasons. There was not even a single beneficiary. So, we have decided to provide them loans directly,” Mr. Foujdar said. A total of Rs. 100 crore will be made available for the scheme. “The Rs. 50 crore set aside for the earlier housing scheme had not been utilised. Another Rs. 50 crore will be added to this made available for the present scheme,” he added.
Arivu scheme
Mr. Foujdar said the government proposes to extend the benefit of Arivu, the educational loan facility for students undergoing professional courses, to at least 5,000 persons as against the 2,300 last year. The government would pay the tuition fee.
Students pursuing medical, engineering, dental, master’s degree courses, diploma courses, nursing, B.Ed., BBM, BCA, D.Ed. and ITI will be given a loan up to Rs 50,000 per annum till the completion of course.
‘Families having an annual income of less than Rs. 3.5 lakh are eligible for the loan
to build a house’
