Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s Union Cabinet has authorized PM Vidyalaxmi, a new Central Sector program designed to give financial aid to deserving students so that no one is prevented from pursuing higher education by financial limitations. The National Education Policy, 2020, which suggested that financial aid be made available to deserving students through a variety of ways at both public and private HEIs, is the source of PM Vidyalaxmi, another significant program. Any student who is accepted into a quality higher education institution (QHEI) under the PM Vidyalaxmi program is entitled to receive a loan from a bank or other financial institution that does not require collateral or guarantors in order to pay for all of their tuition costs and other course-related expenditures.
The program will apply to the nation’s highest-quality HEIs, as identified by the NIRF rankings. These include all government and private HEIs that rank in the top 100 overall, category-specific, and domain-specific rankings; state government HEIs that rank between 101 and 200 in the NIRF; and all institutions under central government control. This list, which will be revised annually based on the most recent NIRF rating, starts with 860 qualified QHEIs, which covers over 22 lakh students who may be eligible for PM-Vidyalaxmi privileges if they so choose.
