CHENNAI: Even as candidates swarmed Anna University campus on the second day of single window counseling for admissions to engineering courses, there were almost an equal number queuing up to inquire about education loans at the stalls put up by banks.
The staff of banks at the five to six stalls inside the university campus said they have been receiving an overwhelming response from parents, who are eager to know about the loan facilities available even before securing a seat.
“Parents particularly ask for the easy options available to get education loans and documents that are required to be submitted. We received over 40 inquires in the two days,” said Padmanabhan, with the marketing department of Indian Overseas Bank.
Canara Bank stall was crowded the whole day. “We crossed 100 enquiries on the first day itself. We are expecting at least 1000 inquiries this year,” said Prabhakar of Canara Bank.
Banks are also taking efforts to lure more people by simplifying loan procedures with an option of ‘spot sanction’. With ‘spot sanction’, parents keen on making their children study engineering are guaranteed an education loan. “We sanctioned about 300 education loans a year before when we put up the stall here. This year, we have given spot sanction to five candidates. With that they can go to nearest branch of our bank and submit required documents to get the loan. We also hope to receive more inquiries in the coming days when only self-financing colleges are available for admissions,” explained Sai Babu, Chief Manager, Dena Bank, Retail Asset Branch.
To make loan procedures even simpler, staff at Canara Bank stall update information on inquiries from candidates online so that staff members of concerned branches could follow it up with the applicants. Further, banks also offer concessions in interests for girls. Nationalised banks like IOB and Canara Bank offer 0.5 concession on interests for girls. “We don’t have any idea about these education loans. We thought it would be a tedious procedure. The stalls have been really helpful,” said Suresh.