Vidya Lakshmi Portal for Educational loans and government scholarships

The portal Vidya Lakshmi, https://www.vidyalakshmi.co.in/Students/, has been launched by the government of India to help students seeking educational loans. The portal was launched on 15th August 2015 and five banks including Bank of India (BOI), IDBI Bank, Canara Bank, State Bank of India (SBI), and Union Bank of India (UBI) have integrated their system with the portal. Also, 39 banks have registered with the portal.

The Vidya Lakshmi portal has been developed and maintained by NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure Limited under the supervision of Department of Financial Services in the Ministry of Finance, Indian Banks’ Association (IBA), Ministry of Human Resource Development, and the Department of Higher Education. The portal has been launched to ensure that no Indian student fails to continue higher education due to financial reasons.

The portal also provides a link to the National Scholarship Portal, allowing students to apply for various Government Scholarships.

The portal:

• Offers information on educational loan schemes offered by the banks integrated with the portal.
• Provides Common Educational Loan Application Form for students.
• Allows banks to download loan applications of students
• Allows students to apply to multiple banks for educational loans.
• Allows banks to upload loan processing status.
• Provides dashboard that help student in checking status of their loan application.
• Allows students to email educational loan-related queries to banks.
• Provides link to National Scholarship Portal, so that students get information about government scholarships and can apply for them.

Vidya Lakshmi Portal: Register and apply for educational loan 

• Visit https://www.vidyalakshmi.co.in/Students/index and sign up, or click the link
• https://www.vidyalakshmi.co.in/Students/signup to go to sign up.
• Create your account by filling the required information, Name, e-mail, mobile.
• Login to the portal using you User id and password
• Complete Common Education Loan Application Form (CELAF) by filling in all the required details. This form filling is a one-time process.
• Once you complete and submit the CELAF, you can search Educational Loan Schemes offered by Banks registered with the Vidya Lakshmi portal.

Using CELAF, one student can apply for loan to a maximum of three Banks through the portal. The interest rate for loans differs from scheme to scheme and bank to bank. You must check the rate of interest of educational loan before applying for it.