Success of credit card scheme doubtful: BJP

<p align="center"> <strong><span>Patna:</span></strong><span> CM Nitish Kumar will launch the Students Credit Card (SCC) scheme to facilitate bank loans to students for higher studies, after Class XII, from October this year as part of his government’s ambitious ‘Saat Nishchay (seven resolves)’ programme, but the state BJP is not impressed and has raised doubts if the bankers would be willing to cooperate with the government.</span></p> <p> <span>Former deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi (SuMo) on Thursday voiced the doubts, saying bankers would be overly concerned about the return of the loans given to students under the state government’s educational loan scheme.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p> <span>He said the bankers annually give educational loans to around 35,000 students of the state under the Union government’s education loan scheme, and have, so far, disbursed Rs 3,014 crore among 1.03 lakh students since the scheme’s launch in 2009.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p> <span>SuMo also asked why students should be given loans from October, when the academic sessions of all the universities and technical educational institutes start from July. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p> <span>Meanwhile, the state government has decided to issue SCCs to five lakh desirous students. They will be able to get educational loan of Rs 4 lakh to pursue higher technical and related studies, it is learnt. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p> <span>Official sources said the government would open district registration centres in October to register the desirous students and also receive applications from them. Every student would have to put his Aadhar number in the application, apart from the names of third party guarantors, to ensure that the students concerned do not end up as bank defaulters.<o:p></o:p></span></p>