HEFA

• A Parliamentary panel has asked Ministry of Education (MoE) to ensure speedy disbursal of sanctioned loans by Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA).

About Higher Education Financing Agency

• HEFA is a joint venture between MoE and Canara Bank to finance infrastructure development in premier educational institutions through long-term loans with an agreed equity participation in the ratio of 90.91% and 09.09% respectively.
• HEFA is registered under Section 8 as Not-for-profit under the Companies Act 2013 as a Union Govt company and as Non–deposit taking Systemically Important (NBFC-ND-SI) with RBI.
• Objective– The main aim of HEFA is for the development of India’s top-ranked institutions like IIT’s, IIIT’s, NIT’s, IISCs, AIIMS into globally top ranking institutions through improvement in their academic and infrastructure quality.
• Government had expanded scope of HEFA in 2018 under Revitalizing Infrastructure and Systems in Education or RISE by 2022 initiative, bringing Kendriya Vidyalayas, Navodaya Vidyalayas, medical institutions etc. under its ambit.