The Bihar government, led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, has took a significant step to lighten the financial load on students: education loans under the Student Credit Card (SCC) scheme are now completely interest free for all students.

Alongside the interest waiver, there has been a change in how and when students has to repay these loans. For amount upto ₹2 lakh, the repayment period has been increase from five years (60 monthly instalments) to seven years (84 instalments). For loans larger than ₹2 lakh, the limit stretched from seven years to ten years (i.e. upto 120 instalments).

Before this decision, general category students was paying 4% interest and marginal disadvantaged groups (female, differently-abled, transgender) were paying 1%. With this change, those distinction are no longer needed since interest has been removed completely.

The Student Credit Card scheme was launched under Bihar’s Saat Nischay Yojana back in 2016, and allow students who pass 12th grade to borrow upto ₹4 lakh for higher education.

This policy shift is seeing as specially meaningful ahead of elections, signaling a strong push to make higher education more accessible. Students who were previous hesitant because of loan interest or tight repayment schedule may now find it easy to pursue further studies without sinking under debt.