Around 70 per cent of the education loans given in the country seem to be going to upper caste students. According to a report by The Hindu, data by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) on a government-funded surety scheme for educational loans has indicated the same.

The data was available on the Credit Guarantee Fund Scheme for Education Loans (CGFSEL).

The data from financial year 2016-17 till now, revealed that of the 4.1 lakh students who benefited from the scheme, 67 per cent belonged to General Category, 23 per cent were from Other Backward Classes, 7 per cent from Scheduled Castes and a mere of 3 per cent belonged to Scheduled Tribes.

It is to be noted that the size of the loan sanctioned to students from General Category was more likely to be higher than the amount sanctioned to students from other categories.

For instance, students from the General Category availed 70% of the total of ₹13,797 crore loan amount covered under CGFSEL.

A student from the General Category was given an average amount of ₹3.54 lakh as loan, whereas a student from other any category such as: OBC, SC, and ST, was given a loan of ₹2.91 lakh, ₹3.24 lakh, and ₹3.17 lakh on an average, respectively.

Su. Venkatesan, Member of Parliament representing Madurai from the Communist Party of India (Marxist), obtained this data through a question in the Lok Sabha. He said that data on the CGFSEL scheme can be taken as a fair indicator as the data on all disbursals of education loans is hard to obtain.

Underlining that the scheme covered only smaller loans sanctioned without collaterals, he said, “These are the loans availed by those from socio-economically backward sections. If there is such a huge gap here, it clearly indicates a problem in social justice.”

NCGTC’s annual report for 2017-18 said 29 banks have registered for the scheme.

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