NEW DELHI: Puducherry, a union territory, has outclassed almost all the states of the north-eastern region put together when it comes to education loans. And if the loan portfolio of public sector banks (PSBs) in southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala is added, they surpass that of the rest of the country.
While PSBs disbursed nearly Rs 100 crore in Puducherry in 2008-09, the total education loans given to students of Meghalaya, Mizoram, Arunachal, Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura together amounted to less than Rs 85 crore.
This was, however, not the first time that the southern region outperformed all other regions when it comes to loans for pursuing higher education. In 2007-08, out of a total of Rs 19,700 crore worth loans disbursed to students across the country, PSBs in southern states alone accounted for more than 52%, or nearly Rs 11,000 crore. In 2008-09, it was Rs 14,280 crore as against the all-India total of Rs 27,000 crore.
In education loan segment, students from the southern region continued to dominate in 2009. Andhra Pradesh’s loan component of Rs 3,900 crore in 2008-09 was more than the disbursal made to the entire western region (Rs 3,223 crore) comprising Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa and Daman and Diu; northern states (Rs 3,209 crore) of Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, J&K, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan; central region (Rs 3,143 crore) states of UP, Uttarakhand, MP and Chhattisgarh; and eastern region (Rs 2,867 crore) comprising Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa and Sikkim.
Among the states, Tamil Nadu had the highest disbursal in 2009 — Rs 5,021 crore — followed by Andhra Pradesh (Rs 3,907 crore), Kerala (Rs 2,900 crore), Maharashtra (Rs 2,197 crore), UP (Rs 1,659 crore) and MP (Rs 1,021 crore).