Karnataka Minorities Development Corporation Ltd. is facing severe financial constraints because of which it is finding it difficult to grant educational loans to students pursuing professional courses.
The demand for educational loans from students belonging to the minority communities has been on the rise over the years mainly because of the growing awareness among them and the efforts being made by the corporation to help them.
According to sources in the corporation, it set a target of providing loans to 5,600 students pursuing medical, engineering, dental, MBA and diploma courses and set aside Rs. 9 crore for the purpose in 2008-09.
The corporation disbursed a total of Rs. 14.88 crore in loans to 9,721 students in 2008-09, Rs. 5.88 crore more than the budgetary allocation. However, the Government approved the payment of tuition fees of only those students who took up medical, engineering and dental courses. The additional amount of Rs. 5.88 crore had to be diverted from other schemes of the corporation. The National Minorities Development Corporation had also helped, sources said.
Despite the information technology boom in recent years, there is demand from minority students, including Muslims, for financial help for degree courses in arts, science and commerce as well. Sources said many Muslim boys and girls in urban areas approached the corporation for financial help even for pre-university education, which spoke of the level of poverty in the community.
The State Human Development Index shows that the level of education among Muslims is lower than that among the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, sources said.
Another much-sought-after micro-loan scheme is the one introduced for the benefit of families living below the poverty line by forming self-help groups. The idea is to help uneducated people from the minority communities living in villages who want to seek employment or set up a small business in nearby cities and towns.
Each applicant is given a loan of Rs. 10,000 at five per cent interest, with a subsidy of Rs. 2,500. In 2008-09, as many as 7,613 people were given loans. While Rs. 9 crore was earmarked for the purpose, Rs. 6.39 crore was disbursed.
Sources said that the recovery of loans taken by students and by those seeking to start small businesses were good, and the corporation wanted to encourage such people instead of wasting its scarce resources on those who sought huge sums of money for unproductive schemes.
