NIIT to have 3000 centers worldwide by Sept end

NIIT, India's IT training major, plans to take up its number of education centers worldwide from 2,228 to 3,000 by the end of September. Chennai, which has about 120 education centers, intends to grow by another 100 centers. That would include the NIIT centers in government schools and colleges. 

It also intends to push its i-GNIIT program in a big way for which the International Finance Corporation, (IFC) a body of the World Bank, Citibank and NIIT have created a Rs 400 crore loan with no collateral. Students who enroll for the Rs 1,30,000 program will have to pay Rs 15,000 and Citibank, the dispersing agency, would provide the rest. The students would have to pay back the loan in seven years and can start repaying at the end of three years when they start earning. About 7,500 students are availing of this loan and currently undergoing the i-GNIIT program. 

"There is no such loan where an institution such as IFC has taken the risk of guaranteeing loans on a program where students will start repaying them after three years. This shows their faith in the relevance of the program being taught even after three years," said P Rajendran, Chief Operating Officer,
NIIT.

It will be extended to nine mini-metros such as Coimbatore, Cochin, Ahmedabad, Baroda, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Jaipur, Lucknow and Ludhiana. Right now, the program is available in 16 cities.