Punjab Education Foundation: BoP allocates Rs 250 million for soft loans to schools

The Bank of Punjab has allocated an amount of Rs 250 million to give soft loans to schools partnered with the Punjab Education Foundation (PEF) under Foundation Assisted Schools (FAS) and New School Programme (NSP). A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between the Bank of Punjab and PEF at BoP Tower, here on Monday.
Besides President BoP, Naeemuddin Khan and Chairman PEF, Raja M. Anwar who signed the MoU on behalf of their respective organisations. The agreement signing ceremony was also attended by MD PEF Ambreen Raza, Deputy Managing Director Finance PEF Salman Anwar Malik and Chief Manager BoP, Tariq Aziz.
According to the MoU, the Punjab Bank will provide soft loans to partner schools of PEF to improve their infrastructure and to ensure quality of education for their students. The maximum amount of loan will be of Rs 0.5 million on monthly instalment. This soft loan, which would have no processing fee, would be available to about two thousand FAS and NSP partner schools of PEF. Punjab Education Foundation will act as a guarantor of this loan, which will be utilised to improve the schools' infrastructure so that students could study in competitive and good environment. According to terms of loan, it will have repayment period from one year to three years while rate of interest of loan will be 7.5 percent.
The president BoP said that they had taken the lead in taking such type of initiatives in the field of education. PEF Chairman, Raja Anwar expressed the hope that it would benefit the partner schools and the students would be the ultimate beneficiary.