Sep 4, 2015: If you are a student looking for an education loan, there’s an easy way out. Now, you need not go through the ordeal of visiting one bank after another to get a loan. Jump to vidyalakshmi.co.in and you can apply for an education loan to multiple banks by filling just one form. It has been developed by NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure Ltd, in collaboration with the department of financial services in the ministry of finance, department of higher education (a part of the human resource development ministry) and the Indian Banks’ Association lobby group.

Students will need to first register on the website and then fill a simple form to apply for a loan on the portal, which they can also use to write to banks about their grievances, if any, with the loan-sanctioning and disbursal process. The website also provides a link to the national scholarship website where students can access student loan schemes being offered by various government departments. 13 banks, including the State Bank of India, IDBI Bank, Canara Bank, Union Bank of India, Bank of India and Punjab National Bank, are registered with the portal to offer education loans. Of these, five banks have integrated their system with the portal for providing the loan processing status to students.

It can make it easier to get an education loan while prospective loan providers, agents and banks gather lucrative data bank of future customers. At present, the only option is to physically go to every branch and apply for a loan. The approach also varies from one branch manager to another. If the name of the institution is not very well recognized, then banks are wary giving a loan.