Switching Jobs? Don’t Ignore Your EPF, NPS, and Mutual Fund Investments 

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Jobs

Your resignation letter is signed, the new offer is accepted, and you’re ready for switching Jobs but what happens to the EPF account and should the new company’s NPS enrollment change anything about how you’re already investing through mutual funds? Don’t Ignore your EPF, NPS and Mutual Fund which most people already are doing.

The EPF vs NPS vs mutual funds decision isn’t really one choice — it’s three separate accounts with three different rules, and a job switch is exactly the moment most people either transfer things correctly or lose track of money they’ve already earned.

What Is EPF, NPS, and Mutual Funds

EPF — 8.25% for FY 2025-26, third year running at that rate, govt-backed, EEE (contribution, interest, withdrawal all tax-free if you cross 5 years’ continuous service). Mandatory for salaried staff at covered establishments; you don’t really “choose” this one, you’re already in it.

NPS — Market-linked, mix of equity/debt/govt bonds you can allocate; extra ₹50,000 deduction under 80CCD(1B) on top of the 80C limit. At exit, minimum 40% of the corpus must go into an annuity — you don’t get the whole pot in cash, and annuity payout rates in India have historically been mediocre (5–6% range).

Mutual funds — No lock-in except ELSS (3 years); LTCG/STCG taxed, no EEE treatment. Best long-run equity return potential of the three, but zero forced discipline — nothing stops you from redeeming during a panic.

Don’t Ignore Your EPF, NPS, and Mutual Funds After Switching Job

Your EPF doesn’t “carry over” automatically. A lot of people assume EPF just follows them to the new job. It doesn’t — not unless you actually transfer it.

When you leave a company, your EPF account under that employer becomes inactive. Your new employer opens a fresh account. If you don’t link the two using your UAN (Universal Account Number), you end up with multiple EPF accounts scattered across your career. Each one earns interest for a while, but an account that stays inactive for 36 months stops earning interest altogether.

How To Set Up Your EPF Account After Job Switch

  • Use the “One Employee One EPF Account” (OEEOA) transfer request on the EPFO portal, or let your new employer initiate it.
  • Don’t withdraw your EPF just because it feels like “extra cash” during the job switch. Withdrawing before 5 years of continuous service makes it taxable, and you lose out on decades of compounding.
  • Check your UAN is correctly linked to Aadhaar and your new employer’s establishment ID — half of all transfer delays come from mismatched KYC details.

The instinct to cash out is understandable when you’re between Jobs and expenses are piling up. But EPF is one of the few instruments giving you a stable, tax-free return over the long run. Treat withdrawal as a last resort, not a bonus.

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Check Your NPS Before Leaving the Company

Your NPS account isn’t tied to your employer at all. It’s tied to you, through your PRAN (Permanent Retirement Account Number). So technically, nothing needs to be “transferred.”

But there’s a catch. If your NPS contribution was happening through your employer under the corporate NPS model, that contribution stops the day you resign. Your new employer may or may not offer an NPS benefit. If they don’t, your account doesn’t close but it goes silent unless you start contributing on your own through the eNPS platform or a POP (Point of Presence).

What to check:

  • Confirm your new employer’s NPS deduction is active and linked to your existing PRAN — don’t let them create a second one by mistake.
  • If your new company doesn’t offer NPS, decide if you want to keep contributing voluntarily. Many people simply let it sit, which defeats the purpose of consistent, long-term retirement investing.
  • Update your bank and nominee details after the switch — this is the most commonly skipped step.

NPS rewards discipline more than any other retirement product because of how compounding and low fund management costs stack up over 20-30 years. A gap of even a couple of years in contributions has a real, measurable impact on your final corpus.

Mutual funds: the SIPs nobody remembers to check

Job switches usually come with a change in salary account, and that’s where mutual fund SIPs quietly break. If your SIP auto-debit was linked to your old salary account and you close that account (or stop maintaining the minimum balance), your SIP simply fails. Most people don’t notice for months — until they check their portfolio and realize three or four SIP cycles never went through.

What to do immediately after switching:

Re-link your SIP mandates to your new primary bank account, or keep enough balance in the old one until the transition is smooth.

Review your asset allocation. A new job often means a new salary, new expenses, maybe new financial goals (relocation, higher rent, a shorter or longer commute cost). Your SIP amounts should reflect your current life, not your old one.

If you got a signing bonus or relocation allowance, resist the urge to let it sit in a savings account. Even a lump sum top-up into an existing fund puts that money to work instead of losing value to inflation.

What Happens If You Neglect These Procedures

None of this is complicated. It’s just easy to postpone because nothing about it feels urgent in the middle of a job change. But delayed EPF transfers lose interest. Paused NPS contributions lose compounding years you can’t get back. Broken SIPs mean missed market cycles.

A Jobs switch is one of the few moments where you’re forced to look at your entire financial setup at once — new salary, new perks, new expenses. Use that moment. Spend one weekend afternoon logging into EPFO, checking your PRAN, and confirming your SIPs are active. It’s boring, unglamorous work. It’s also the difference between a retirement corpus that actually reflects your career and one that has quiet, unexplained gaps in it.

Your new job deserves your excitement. Your old investments deserve five minutes of your attention before you move on.

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Conclusion

Switching Jobs is exciting but don’t ignore your EPF, NPS, and mutual funds investment as it is a chance to reset your financial checklist. Your EPF needs to be transferred, your NPS needs to stay linked to your PRAN, and your mutual fund SIPs need to keep running without interruption.

You don’t have to choose between EPF vs NPS vs mutual funds, understanding the role each plays in your long-term financial plan is important. EPF provides retirement stability, NPS adds a dedicated retirement investment option, while mutual funds offer greater flexibility and growth potential.

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How to Start a Mineral Water Business: Complete Guide

August 24, 2026 / Blog / By Alpana
Mineral Water Business

Students who want to start a business while studying that will grow with time when they get passed out but don’t know how to start a mineral water business, stay consistent and understand everything step-by-step. Why the Mineral Water Business ? Because it’s easy and needs less investment so students can easily work it out.

In every area there’s someone on a bicycle, two or three 20-litre cans strapped to the back seat, making rounds before the 9 a.m. lecture. And you’re wondering about the cost per can, number of houses in the block, weekly demand and deciding to start a mineral water business. It sounds like the side income you’ve been looking for.

It’s not a bad instinct. Even if you don’t have six months of free time, and lakhs of rupees sitting idle. You can still set up your small business amid juggling a timetable, a hostel curfew, and exam weeks. Here’s what actually applies if you’re starting this while you’re still enrolled.

Mineral Water Business Is Different From Packaged Drinking Water

The label gets used loosely, and that’s where a lot of first-time entrepreneurs trip up. Under Indian standards, “natural mineral water” (IS 13428) and “packaged drinking water” (IS 14543) are two different categories. The natural mineral water is sourced from a protected mineral spring, while packaged drinking water is the RO-and-UV purified water in cans and bottles that almost every local plant actually sells. 

If you’ve ever seen a delivery guy with unbranded 20-litre cans, that’s packaged drinking water, not mineral water in the technical sense — even though everyone calls it “mineral water” on the street.

It matters because both categories legally require BIS certification if you’re selling them in a sealed, labelled container under a brand name. FSSAI registration is a separate, additional requirement that applies to anyone in the food and water supply chain — manufacturer, distributor, or reseller. 

Skipping either one isn’t a grey area; local FDA teams do seal unlicensed plants, and it happens more often than people expect. If you don’t have much money then you can apply for FSSAI certification to start with.

The Reality of Setting Up A Brand of Water

If the plan is to manufacture and bottle your own brand, here’s the honest range, based on current supplier and consultancy listings — treat these as ballpark figures and verify locally, since they shift by state, capacity, and vendor:

  • BIS/ISI certification facilitation through a consultant typically runs somewhere in the ₹35,000–₹70,000 range.
  • Entry-level packaged drinking water machinery (RO plant, filling, capping) starts around ₹2.4 lakh for lower-capacity units and climbs past ₹13 lakh for higher-capacity setups.
  • A full project — machinery, water-testing lab, premises — can land around ₹25 lakh once you include everything, which is roughly the scale seen in real project reports built for government-backed loans like PMEGP, financed mostly through a bank loan plus KVIC margin-money subsidy.

None of that is pocket money, and the setup timeline — BIS testing cycles, layout approval, machinery installation — usually runs months, not weeks. It’s a business for after you graduate, or for a family that already owns a plant.

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How to Start a Mineral Water Business While Studying

The workaround isn’t to skip compliance — it’s to skip manufacturing. Instead of building a plant, tie up with a local packaged drinking water plant that already holds FSSAI and BIS certification, and become their reseller or delivery partner in a specific area you can actually cover between classes.

You’ll still need your own FSSAI Basic Registration — it’s mandatory for anyone distributing or reselling food and water products, not just manufacturers, but it’s a low-cost, online process aimed at businesses with turnover under ₹12 lakh a year. No lab, no machinery, no factory inspection required at this tier.

However, you can’t put your own brand name on someone else’s water without their manufacturer backing you under their BIS license. Either sell openly under the supplier’s existing brand as their authorized reseller, or have a documented dealership arrangement. Your own labelled brand is the manufacturing route above — a later-stage move, not a starting point.

How to Manage Your Business While Attending Classes

A few things make the difference between this staying manageable and it eating your semester:

  • Keep the radius tight. Your own hostel block, one PG cluster, or a few shops near campus — something you can cover in under 15 minutes so it fits around lecture slots.
  • Vet suppliers in person. Visit two or three candidate plants, ask to physically see their FSSAI certificate and BIS license number rather than taking their word for it.
  • Apply for FSSAI Basic Registration early — it’s inexpensive and doesn’t take long, but it’s not something to leave until customers are already asking for it.
  • Run subscriptions, not daily orders. A weekly or monthly can subscription over WhatsApp is far easier to manage during exam weeks than fielding one-off orders every day.
  • Budget for the deposit cycle. Most local can systems run on a refundable can deposit — commonly in the ₹50–100 range per can, though this varies by supplier. That money is tied up as working capital until the empty can comes back, not profit you can spend.
  • GST registration only becomes mandatory once turnover crosses ₹40 lakh a year for goods in most states (lower in a few special-category states). Most student-run operations won’t hit that in year one.

Where Student Water Businesses Usually Fail

Three patterns show up repeatedly, and they’re worth naming before you start rather than after:

Treating it as passive income when it’s really a logistics job — someone has to physically move 20-kilogram cans at a fixed time, every week, including exam season. Letting the deposit-cash mismatch creep up — if thirty cans are out with customers and only ten deposits have come back, the working capital gap is real and it stalls reorders. 

And trying to compete on price against an established local operator who already owns the plant and the delivery network — a student reseller almost never wins that fight, and shouldn’t try. The actual pitch is convenience: reliable timing around class hours, UPI payment, water dropped right at the door. 

Read More 👉 Business Ideas for Students With Zero Investment — Easy Startup Guide

Where To Begin Your Mineral Water Business?

  • Skip the machinery quote for now. Call two local packaged drinking water plants and ask if they take resellers. 
  • Apply for your FSSAI Basic Registration online. 
  • Then run a 20-can pilot in your own hostel or nearby block before spending a rupee on anything beyond that. 
  • If the pilot survives one full exam cycle without a missed delivery, you’ll know whether this is a real business or just a good week.

Conclusion

Understanding how to Start a Mineral Water Business as a student is different from starting as a manufacturer. So don’t follow large-level business instruction points, begin with less investment and short area to cover. 

While attending your classes, you can set up your side business for passive income and it gets succeeded then you can turn it into a large-scale business. Apply FSSAI registration and track down your reliable provider who already has a water plant industry. Expand the network in the hostel and nearby block to easily deliver the mineral water cans.

Stay consistent and don’t get bored in just one week, keep up with the idea and you’ll get a success. 

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Business Ideas for Students With Zero Investment — Easy Startup Guide

August 22, 2026 / Blog / By Mariyam
Business Ideas

Your semester fees just went out, your parents already transferred money twice this month, and asking again feels wrong. Meanwhile, half your hostel WhatsApp group is talking about someone in third year who’s making pocket money reselling kurtis on Instagram, and another guy is tutoring juniors for ₹500 an hour between classes. You’ve got a laptop, a phone, and more free time than you think — what you don’t have is capital. That’s fine, because none of the Business Ideas for students with zero investment below need any.

It’s a practical rundown of what students in India are actually doing right now to earn without touching their savings or taking a loan — plus how to do it without your attendance or your grades taking the hit.

Why Students Need These Business Ideas

Your parents are already paying the education cost in lakhs. Tuition, hostel fees, textbooks, and the occasional weekend trip are climbing faster than your father’s income. You thought of eating maggi at dinner to save the money but it won’t help. Customer service jobs or fixed shifts at retail shops pay the working hours so it affects your studies and classes. These Business Ideas for students are flexible, even if you start small, you can keep earning through referrals, repeat orders and content that stays active while you’re busy in exams. 

There’s a second reason that matters just as much: what you build now becomes proof of work later. A recruiter reading “ran a 200-follower food page that landed three restaurant collaborations” or “sold ₹40,000 worth of handmade jewellery on Instagram over one semester” is reading initiative, sales sense, and follow-through — things a transcript can’t show. 

Freelance platforms like Fiverr and Upwork, and reselling apps like Meesho, have made the entry point for all of this genuinely free; you’re not renting a shop or buying inventory, you’re renting your own time.

How to Manage a Startup With Your Studies?

The honest risk with any student business is letting it eat into exam prep. A few ground rules keep that from happening:

  1. Block fixed hours, not “free time.” “I’ll work on it when I’m free” usually means never. Pick two or three specific slots a week — say, 7–9 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays — and treat them like a lab session you can’t skip.
  2. Start with one product or one client, not five. Trying to tutor, resell, and run a YouTube channel in the same month usually means all three stay half-finished. Pick one, get it earning something small and consistent, then add the next.
  3. Use what your campus already gives you for free. Wi-Fi, a decent camera on a hostel-mate’s phone, a common room for shoots, a WhatsApp broadcast list of 60 classmates — that’s most of the “startup cost” covered before you spend a rupee.
  4. Protect exam weeks on purpose. Pause client work or batch your content a week in advance before internals and end-sems. A business that costs you a backlog isn’t worth running.
  5. Treat semester breaks as your test lab. Two months without lectures is the best window to try an idea at full speed and see if it’s worth continuing during term time, or if it was only ever a break-time project.

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Business Ideas for Students With Zero Investment

Each of these can be started with a phone, an internet connection, and whatever skill or spare time you already have. No inventory to buy, no shop to rent.

1. Tutoring & Trainer

If you’re good at a subject, a language, or even a sport, someone younger is struggling with exactly that right now. Offline, this means tutoring school kids in your neighbourhood or juniors in your own course during exam season. 

Online, platforms like Vedantu, Superprof, and Unacademy let you list yourself as a subject tutor without paying a listing fee, and you can also just post in your college’s WhatsApp/Telegram groups. Beyond academics, “trainer” covers fitness coaching, yoga sessions, or teaching a musical instrument over video call — anything you already know how to do.

2. Reselling Products

Reselling apps let you sell fashion, home, and lifestyle products through your own WhatsApp and Instagram without holding stock — the supplier ships directly to the buyer. Meesho is the platform most Indian resellers currently use for this. You share a product link, add your margin, and the platform handles logistics. It’s genuinely zero-investment because you never buy stock upfront. You can purchase for yourself and make review videos for Youtube — a content idea that helps your channel monetize and receive more brand promotions.

3. Handmade & Crafted Items

If you make jewellery, resin art, candles, crochet pieces, or hand-painted items, you already have a product — you just need a shopfront. Instagram works as a free storefront on its own; a basic Shopify store is an option once orders pick up, though Shopify does charge a subscription once your free trial ends, so weigh that against your order volume first. 

College fests and flea markets are also underrated distribution: a single fest stall can outsell a month of Instagram posts because people can touch the product before buying.

4. Local Influencer

You don’t need lakhs of followers to start earning as a food, travel, or campus-news page — brands doing local marketing often care more about engagement rate than follower count. 

A food page covering canteens and local eateries near campus, a travel page documenting budget weekend trips, or a campus-news account covering fests and placements can all start picking up small paid collaborations once the page has a real, active audience — even a few thousand followers.

5. Share Your Skills on YouTube

Teaching what you know on camera works because the content keeps earning views long after you upload it. Coding walkthroughs, recipe videos, DIY room-decor tutorials, study-with-me sessions, or a “learn Spanish in 10 minutes” series are all formats students are already running successfully. 

YouTube’s Partner Programme requires a watch-hour and subscriber threshold before ad revenue kicks in, so early on this is more about building an audience and a portfolio than instant income — brand deals usually arrive before AdSense money does.

6. Graphic Design

If you can put together a clean logo, an Instagram carousel, or a poster, small businesses and even fellow students will pay for it — most don’t have an in-house designer. Canva’s free tier is enough to start; Canva Pro is worth the (still low) cost only once you have paying clients. 

Fiverr is the easiest place to list design gigs with zero setup cost. Print-on-demand — designing T-shirts, mugs, or phone cases that a platform like Redbubble prints and ships only when someone orders, is the same skill applied to a physical product, again with no inventory risk.

7. Social Media Management and Content Writing

Small businesses — a local salon, a café, a tuition centre — often know they need Instagram content but don’t have time to make it. Managing 2–3 such accounts for a monthly fee is realistic freelance work you can do from a hostel room. 

Content writing runs in parallel: blogs, product descriptions, and SEO articles are in constant demand, and platforms like Upwork and Contentmart are common entry points for beginners. If you’d rather build something of your own instead of freelancing for others, a niche newsletter or blog you grow yourself can eventually monetise through ads or sponsorships too.

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8. Repairing Mobiles and Laptops

Every hostel has someone with a cracked screen, a dead battery, or a laptop that won’t boot, and most students don’t want to make a trip to a service centre for something small. If you’re comfortable with basic hardware fixes and software troubleshooting — clearing malware, reinstalling an OS, replacing a battery — you can build a reputation purely through word of mouth in your own hostel block. This one scales slowly but has almost no competition on campus.

9. Making/Selling Notes, and Reselling Old Books

Well-organised, exam-focused notes are worth real money to juniors who’d rather buy clarity than make it themselves. Selling PDF notes or a compiled formula sheet through your class WhatsApp group costs you nothing but the time you’d have spent making them for yourself anyway. 

The same logic applies to old textbooks and reference books gathering dust after your exams — sell them directly to incoming juniors or through campus resale groups instead of letting them sit unused.

10. Tiffin or Food Delivery on Campus

Hostel food gets old fast, and a home-style tiffin service run out of your own kitchen (or a family member’s) fills a real gap — this works especially well if you live near campus and can cook, or partner with someone who does. 

Start with a small WhatsApp order list for your block before expanding, and be upfront about your kitchen’s hygiene standards since that’s the first thing customers will ask about.

11. Dropshipping Business

Dropshipping lets you run an online store — usually on Shopify where a supplier ships products directly to your customer, so you never hold stock. It’s worth being honest about one thing here: while there’s no inventory cost, most dropshipping stores don’t get real traffic without some ad spend, so “zero investment” mostly holds if you’re driving traffic organically through social media rather than paid ads, at least until the store proves itself.

12. Photography

If you already have a decent phone camera or access to a friend’s DSLR, campus fests, birthdays, and small local events are a steady source of paid photography work that needs no equipment purchase to start. Portfolio-building is the real first step — shoot a few events for free or cheap, post the best shots, and let those bookings lead to paid ones.

13. Audiobooks and Dubbing

If you have a clear speaking voice, platforms built for Indian-language audio content — Kuku FM and Pocket FM among them — regularly look for narrators and voice talent, and Audible’s ACX opens up English narration and dubbing work globally. This is genuinely zero-cost to start — a quiet room and a phone mic are enough for a demo reel.

You can use this skill to upload on Youtube without using copyright content and earn when thousands of people listen to it.

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14. Creating AI Agents

This is the newest idea on the list and the one moving fastest. No-code automation tools — Zapier, Make, and n8n among them — let you build simple AI agents and chatbots (a WhatsApp order-taking bot for a local shop, an FAQ agent for a small business website) without writing production code. 

Local businesses that can’t afford a developer are a realistic first client base, and Fiverr/Upwork already have a growing “build me an AI agent” category. Because this space is changing month to month, treat any specific tool or pricing claim here as a starting point to verify, not a fixed fact.

15. Tour Coach

If you know your city well — the food streets, the history, the spots tourists never find on Google — you can run informal walking tours for other students, exchange-programme visitors, or tourists passing through. 

This starts as pure word-of-mouth and a shared Google Form for bookings; no licence or investment is needed for small informal group walks, though it’s worth checking your city’s local rules if you plan to scale it into a formal, paid business.

How to Choose One Business Option for Yourself

With fifteen options on the table, picking one comes down to three honest questions:

What do you already do without being asked? If you’re the one editing everyone’s assignment for grammar, that’s writing or content work. If you’re the one people ask to fix their laptop, that’s repair. The idea that fits fastest is usually the one closest to a habit you already have.

How many hours can you actually spare each week? Tutoring and freelance writing can run for 3–4 hours weekly. A tiffin service or reselling business needs closer to daily attention. Be honest about your semester’s course load before committing to something time-heavy.

Does your campus or city actually have demand for it? A tiffin service needs hungry hostel students nearby. A tour-coach idea needs a city with something to show. Match the idea to where you actually are, not to what worked for someone in a different city’s Instagram reel.

If two ideas still feel equally right, run both for two weeks each during a low-pressure period and let actual results — not your gut — make the call.

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Conclusion

You don’t need capital to start earning as a student — you need one skill, a few free hours a week, and the willingness to start small enough that a bad exam week doesn’t sink the whole thing. Pick the one idea from this list of “Business Ideas for students” that matches something you’re already good at, give it thirty days of consistent effort before judging it, and treat the first version as a test rather than a final plan. 

Most student businesses that actually last didn’t start as a five-year vision — they started as someone testing whether people would pay for something they were already doing for free.

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Best Student Loans for College Students

August 18, 2026 / Blog / By Alpana
Student Loans

Your admission letter came through and you are stressed about its fees? That’s the moment you’ll start looking for the best student loans for college students. Between tuition, hostel, a laptop, and living costs, a B.Tech at a decent private college or a master’s abroad can run anywhere from ₹8 lakh to over ₹1 crore, and very few Indian families are sitting on that kind of cash without dipping into a fixed deposit meant for something else. 

This is exactly where the best Student Loans in the market — from SBI’s Scholar Loan to NBFCs like HDFC Credila and Avanse, start doing real work, provided it actually fits your situation instead of just going with whichever bank branch is nearest to your house.

This blog walks through the loan for education options Indian students actually use in 2026 — public banks, private banks, NBFCs, and the government’s PM Vidyalaxmi scheme with real numbers, what each one is genuinely good at, and where it falls short.

Who Can Get These Loans for Education

If you’re an Indian student (or a parent reading this on their behalf) heading into an undergraduate program, a postgraduate course, or a study-abroad admission, and you need a study loan rather than paying out of pocket, this comparison is built for you. It splits lenders into three buckets — public sector banks, private banks, and specialised NBFCs because each serves a different kind of borrower, and picking the wrong bucket is the single most common reason students overpay by lakhs over a 15-year tenure.

Interest rates on education loans are floating and revised frequently by each lender’s internal benchmark. The figures below reflect indicative ranges reported by lenders and comparison platforms as of mid-2026. Treat every rate here as a starting reference, not a quote so confirm the live number on the lender’s own site before you apply.

Best Student Loans For College Students in India

1. SBI Scholar Loan / Global Ed-Vantage — Best for Domestic Students and Government-Bank Trust

  • Rate: roughly 8.15%–10.75%, MCLR-linked (floating)
  • Loan amount: up to ₹7.5 lakh without collateral for listed premier institutes; higher amounts with collateral, up to ₹1.5 crore under Global Ed-Vantage for study abroad
  • Processing fee: flat ₹10,000 — no percentage-based fee
  • Tenure: up to 15 years

SBI remains the default first stop for most Indian students, and there’s a simple reason: as the largest public bank, it consistently prices education loans lower than private banks and NBFCs, and its flat processing fee actually saves real money on larger loans compared to a percentage-based charge. 

The trade-off is speed — SBI’s sanction process for study-abroad loans can take four to eight weeks, and IBA guidelines require 15% margin money on foreign education loans above ₹4 lakh, meaning you’ll need to arrange that slice yourself. 

Best for: students with time before their visa deadline who want the lowest lifetime interest cost.

2. HDFC Credila — Best for Speed and High-Value Unsecured Loans

  • Rate: roughly 9.5%–13%, secured loans starting near 9.95%, unsecured (no collateral) starting near 11.25%
  • Loan amount: up to ₹50–60 lakh for premier institutes, sometimes higher
  • Processing fee: 1%–1.5% plus GST
  • Tenure: up to 15 years

Credila built its business on what it calls a “future employability” assessment rather than collateral value, which is why students without property to pledge still get approved here. Sanctions typically land in 7–14 days, which matters enormously when a visa interview is on the calendar and SBI’s timeline doesn’t fit. 

The catch is that unsecured Credila loans run meaningfully higher than SBI’s rate, and the processing fee, a percentage plus GST are added up fast on a ₹50 lakh loan. 

Best for: students on a tight admission or visa timeline who need fast, collateral-free approval and can absorb a higher rate.

3. Bank of Baroda — Best for Large Loans to Global Universities

  • Rate: competitive with SBI, generally in the 8.5%–11% band depending on the institute tier
  • Loan amount: up to ₹1.5 crore for premium global universities
  • Processing fee: typically lower than private banks; concessions available for girl students
  • Tenure: up to 15 years

BoB doesn’t get the same attention as SBI or the big NBFCs, but for students heading to genuinely expensive programs like top-50 global MBAs or engineering master’s — its higher loan ceiling and public-bank pricing make it worth a direct comparison. 

Best for: high-ticket study-abroad admissions where you need both a large sanction and a public-bank rate.

4. Avanse Financial Services — Best for Broad Course Coverage

  • Rate: roughly 11%–14.5%
  • Loan amount: up to ₹50–75 lakh
  • Processing fee: 1.25%–1.75% plus GST
  • Tenure: up to 15 years

Avanse is one of the few lenders that regularly finances courses public banks are cautious about — niche postgraduate programs, some online degrees, and vocational tracks. It’s genuinely useful when your course doesn’t fit a PSU bank’s approved list. The limitation is its rates sit at the higher end of the NBFC range, so it’s rarely the cheapest option on the table. 

Best for Student Loans for college students whose course or university isn’t covered by public-bank lending lists.

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5. Axis Bank / ICICI Bank Education Loan — Best for Existing Bank Customers Wanting Fast Digital Processing

  • Rate: roughly 9.5%–13.5%
  • Loan amount: up to ₹40 lakh
  • Processing fee: moderate, varies by profile
  • Tenure: typically 10–15 years

If you or your parents already bank with Axis or ICICI, pre-approved education loans can be sanctioned in as little as 72 hours for existing customers, bundled with a forex card and a student account for study abroad. The point here is convenience, not price — you’re paying slightly more for an integrated, faster experience with a bank you already have a relationship with. 

Best for: existing customers who value speed and a bundled international banking package over shaving off the last percentage point of interest.

SBI vs HDFC Credila: The Two-Lender Face-Off

These two get compared constantly because they represent opposite philosophies — lowest cost versus fastest approval.

SBI Global Ed-VantageHDFC Credila
Starting rate~8.15%–9.65%~9.5%–11.25% (unsecured)
Processing feeFlat ₹10,0001%–1.5% + GST
Sanction time4–8 weeks7–14 days
CollateralRequired above ₹7.5 lakhOptional, employability-based
Best forLowest total interest costTight visa or admission deadlines

On a ₹50 lakh, 15-year loan, roughly every 100 basis points of extra interest costs about ₹7.5 lakh over the loan’s life, so the gap between these two isn’t cosmetic. Take Credila or Avanse first to secure fast disbursal for the visa file, then refinance into SBI once the loan is live and the pressure is off.

 

This works better than it used to, because the RBI’s Prepayment Charges Directions, effective January 1, 2026, banned foreclosure and prepayment charges on floating-rate loans to individual borrowers — a rule that covers nearly every education loan in this list. Before this, NBFCs could charge 2%–5% of the outstanding principal to close a loan early; that lock-in is now gone.

Don’t Skip the Government Route: PM Vidyalaxmi Scheme

Before comparing private lenders at all, check whether you qualify for PM Vidyalaxmi, the Centre’s collateral-free education loan scheme launched in November 2024. It isn’t a separate lender — it works through participating banks but it changes the math significantly for eligible students:

  • Collateral-free, guarantor-free loans up to ₹7.5 lakh, backed by a 75% government credit guarantee
  • Covers students admitted purely on merit (not management or NRI quota) to around 1,425 listed Quality Higher Education Institutions
  • A 3% interest subvention during the moratorium period for families with annual income up to ₹8 lakh, on loans up to ₹10 lakh
  • Rates capped at the bank’s benchmark lending rate plus 0.5%, with banks free to offer an extra 1% concession if you service interest during your study period
  • Subsidy is disbursed directly through the PM Vidyalaxmi Digital Rupee (CBDC) app

More than 1.12 lakh loans had been sanctioned under the scheme as of July 2026, so it’s no longer a pilot — it’s a live, functioning route worth checking on the PM Vidyalaxmi portal before you approach a bank directly.

Read More 👉 Best Student Laptops for School and University in 2026 

Two Rules That Apply Regardless of Which Lender You Choose

Section 80E tax benefit: the entire interest you pay on student loans for college students — not principal, and with no upper cap is deductible from your taxable income for up to 8 years from the year you start repaying. This applies to loans from any bank or approved NBFC and is one of the few genuinely uncapped deductions left in Indian tax law.

The girl-student concession: most public banks, including SBI and PNB, shave 0.5% off the standard rate for female applicants. It’s easy to miss because it’s rarely advertised loudly — ask for it explicitly when you apply for any of these student loans for college students.

Conclusion

If your priority is the lowest total interest over 15 years and you have a few weeks before your deadline, start with SBI — check PM Vidyalaxmi eligibility first if your loan need is under ₹7.5 lakh. 

If your visa interview or admission deposit deadline is within two weeks and you need money to move fast, HDFC Credila or Avanse will get you there, with the option to refinance into a cheaper public-bank loan later at no penalty under the new RBI rule. And if your course or university sits outside what PSU banks typically approve, Avanse’s broader course coverage is worth a direct call before you assume you’re out of options. 

Whichever lender you pick, don’t sign with the first offer you get on Student Loans for college students — pull two or three live quotes through the Vidya Lakshmi portal, apply the 80E deduction into your repayment planning from day one, and claim every concession you’re eligible for.

Note: Interest rates, fees, and scheme terms mentioned above are indicative and change frequently. Verify current figures directly with the lender or on official government portals before applying. 

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Best Noise-Cancelling Headphones for Online Classes and Mock Tests 

August 21, 2026 / Blog / By Alpana
Headphones

You’re 40 minutes into a 3-hour mock test, deep into the reasoning section, and someone two floors down starts drilling a wall. Or it’s your neighbor’s TV bleeding through during a live online class, right when the teacher explains the one concept you actually needed. With best Noise-Cancelling Headphones, it is possible to block the noise out the room, stays comfortable for hours, and doesn’t die halfway through a session. 

As that kind of interruption doesn’t just annoy you — it costs you marks and attention you can’t get back. The right pair of Noise-Cancelling Headphones for online classes and mock tests is meant for this. Not just any Headphones — most people don’t need studio-grade audio for a lecture or a test window. Here are best picks that actually do that, across different budgets.

Why ANC Matters More for Exams Than for Music

Active noise cancellation in short ANC, helps prevent outside noise with an inverse sound wave by using a microphone and it is so effective on low-frequency and steady sound like traffic, fans, washing machine, TV, and construction site but less effective random sharp noises like barking or door slamming.

For a 2-3 hour mock test, that steady cancellation is what keeps your focus from draining. For live classes, you also need a decent mic, since ANC alone won’t help your teacher hear you over a ceiling fan.

Best Noise-Cancelling Headphones for Online Classes and Mock Tests

1. boAt Airdopes 413 ANC — ₹1,999

  • 25dB Active Noise Cancellation
  • ENx dual-mic technology for calls
  • ~20 hours total battery (earbuds + case)
  • In-ear TWS design


This is about as cheap as real ANC gets in India, and it holds up for what it is — steady background noise gets noticeably duller, which is the whole point during a test. The case battery isn’t huge, so charge it the night before a long mock test rather than assuming it’ll carry you through a full day.

Best for: the tightest possible budget where any real ANC beats none.

2. Boult Audio Omega — ₹2,499

  • Active Noise Cancellation + separate ENC chip for calls
  • 4 mics per stem, touch controls
  • ~32 hours total battery (8hr earbuds + 24hr case)
  • Dedicated Game Mode for low latency

The separate ENC chip is the standout here — it’s built for call clarity, which matters if your online classes involve a lot of back-and-forth with the teacher rather than passive listening. If you are also looking for gaming purposes, not just for mock test sessions then low-latency mode is an additional benefit in Boult Audio Omega.

Best for: students who have live classes and online courses to attend rather than recorded lectures.

3. Noise Buds Solo — ₹2,999

  • Active Noise Cancellation with switchable Transparency mode
  • 10mm driver, touch controls for calls/music/voice assistant
  • ~36 hours total battery (7hr earbuds + case)
  • Interchangeable eartips for fit
Noise Buds Solo


The 36-hour total battery is the best in this budget tier, and the switchable Transparency mode is genuinely handy — flip it on for five minutes if someone’s calling you from another room, without pulling an earbud out mid-test. Interchangeable eartips also make a bigger difference than you might realize; a bad seal will ruin passive noise isolation even before ANC activates. 

Best for: the best all-round earbud pick under ₹3,000 if battery life is your priority.

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4. boAt Rockerz 450 ANC — ₹2,499–2,999

  • Hybrid ANC (up to 25dB reduction)
  • 20-hour battery life with ANC on
  • 40mm dynamic drivers, BEAST mode for low-latency audio
  • On-ear, foldable design
boAt Rockerz 450 ANC


This is the one to get if you just need to shut out a noisy house without spending a month’s pocket money. The ANC won’t touch a jackhammer, but it flattens fan noise, traffic hum, and a TV in the next room reasonably well. The ear cushions get a little warm after 2+ hours, and call clarity is average — fine for a mock test, less ideal if you’re live-unmuting often in class.

Best for: students on a tight budget who mainly need ANC for silent, focused test-taking.

5. Soundcore Q20i — ₹4,298

  • Hybrid ANC with Indoor/Outdoor/Transport modes
  • 40-hour battery life with ANC on
  • Soft protein-leather earcups
  • Wired mode available (3.5mm) when the battery does die
Soundcore Q20i


The battery life here is the real selling point — 40 hours means you could go through an entire mock-test series for a week without touching the charger. The Indoor mode specifically tunes the ANC for steady household noise rather than street sound, which is exactly the scenario most Indian students are dealing with. The bass is a bit boosted for critical listening, but for lectures and tests that’s irrelevant.

Best for: anyone who forgets to charge things — this Noise-Cancelling Headphones forgives you.

6. JBL Tune 770NC — ₹8,999–10,999

  • Adaptive ANC that responds very quickly to the surrounding noise automatically
  • 50-hour battery life (ANC off), around 44 hours with ANC on
  • Multipoint Bluetooth (connect to phone and laptop simultaneously)
  • 40mm drivers with JBL Signature Sound
JBL Tune 770NC

The multipoint pairing is genuinely useful if you attend classes on a laptop but take calls or check notifications on your phone — no fumbling with Bluetooth settings mid-lecture. Adaptive ANC means it automatically dials up cancellation when your maid starts sweeping and dials back down when it’s quiet, instead of a fixed on/off toggle. Bass is JBL’s usual signature — punchy, a little forward — which some people love and others find a bit much for spoken-word content.

Best for: students juggling both a laptop for classes and a phone for everything else.

7. Soundcore Space Q45 — ₹9,999 (often available around ₹8,500–9,000 on sale)

  • Adaptive ANC rated up to 98% noise reduction
  • 50-hour battery life with ANC on
  • LDAC support for Hi-Res audio over Bluetooth
  • Memory foam earcups, app-based custom EQ

This is the closest thing to flagship-level ANC without paying flagship prices. The 98% noise reduction figure holds up well against consistent background noise — the kind you get from a busy street or a joint family household during the day. Good memory foam cushions really do make a difference during a 3-hour test because your ears are not sore at the end. The app is actually useful, allowing you to choose a “study” EQ preset that cuts mid-bass boom, making spoken word clearer while you’re studying or attending lectures.

Best for: the best all-round pick if you want near-premium ANC without the premium price tag.

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8. Sony WH-1000XM5 — ₹29,990

  • Industry-leading ANC with 8-microphone array and dual processors
  • 30-hour battery life with ANC on
  • Speak-to-Chat: automatically pauses audio when you start talking
  • Precise Voice Pickup Technology for clearer calls
Sony WH-1000XM5

If your budget stretches this far, the XM5 is close to overkill for a student use case — but that’s not a bad thing. A duo which makes you feel like you are sitting in an exam hall rather than your house. When you’re nervous your voice gets lower that people sitting behind the system couldn’t understand but Sony WH-1000XM5 gives an automatic Speak-to-Chat feature that pauses automatically if you say something out loud and passes your lower voice very smoothly. But this is too expensive for students but college students who strictly need can buy it on EMI

Best for: students who treat this as a long-term investment across school, coaching, and eventually work-from-home use.

Sony WH-1000XM5 vs Soundcore Space Q45

Sony WH-1000XM5Soundcore Space Q45
Price₹29,990₹9,999
ANC strengthBest-in-class, handles sudden noise tooExcellent against steady noise, weaker on sudden sharp sounds
Battery (ANC on)30 hours50 hours
Mic quality for classesBest on this listGood, not exceptional
Value for a student budgetLow — premium pricingHigh — near-flagship ANC at a third of the price

If money weren’t a factor, the XM5 wins outright. For a student budget, though, the Space Q45 gets you 80-90% of the noise-cancelling experience for roughly a third of the price, plus a longer battery — which matters more than most people expect once exam season gets long.

Which Noise-Cancelling Headphones Should You Buy?

If you’re prepping for a single exam cycle and want the smallest possible spend, go with the boAt Rockerz 450 ANC or the Soundcore Q20i — either will hold up fine for mock tests where mic quality doesn’t matter. If you’re attending daily online classes on top of tests and need reliable multipoint connectivity, the JBL Tune 770NC earns its price. 

And if you’re looking for one pair that will cover you throughout years of coaching, college, and then working remotely, the Soundcore Space Q45 is the best value for money on this list, with the Sony WH-1000XM5 as the upgrade option if budget genuinely isn’t an issue. 

All of Noise-Cancelling Headphones are available on Amazon.in and Flipkart, boAt and Sony also sell directly from their own India stores if you want manufacturer warranty support without a third party seller in the mix. Prices above reflect typical listings as of August 2026 and do fluctuate with sale events — worth a quick price-check before you check out.

boAt Rockerz 450 ANC vs Noise Buds Solo

boAt Rockerz 450 ANC (Over-ear)Noise Buds Solo (Earbuds)
Price₹2,499–2,999₹2,999
Noise blockingANC + passive seal from ear cupsANC only, weaker passive isolation
Comfort for 2-3 hr sessionsBetter for most — no in-ear fatigueSome users get ear fatigue past 90 min
Battery20 hours~36 hours total (earbuds + case)
PortabilityFoldable but bulkierFits in a pocket

If you’re choosing between a headphone and earbuds at roughly the same price, format matters more than spec sheets here. Over-ear wins on raw silence for a long test window; earbuds win on battery life and portability if you’re carrying them between home, coaching class, and a library.

Read More 👉 How to Apply for a Student Loan to Get a Higher Education & Make Career

Conclusion

Best Noise-Cancelling Headphones for online class and mock tests are not always the expensive ones. For most students, the Soundcore Space Q45 provides the best combination of ANC, comfort, battery life, and price, while the boAt Rockerz 450 ANC and Soundcore Q20i are better choices for those on a tighter budget. 

If money is not an issue, the Sony WH-1000XM5 offers the best overall experience. In the end, decide based on the length of your studies, the noise level of your environment and whether you need better microphones or portability in addition to noise cancellation. 

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How to Apply for an Education Loan Online

August 26, 2026 / Blog / By Alpana
Education Loan

Your admission letter has a deadline attached to it, and so does the deposit your college wants. That’s usually the exact moment families realise they need an education loan and have no idea where to start — which bank, which portal, how long it takes, or whether the college fee will actually reach the institute on time. Applying for an Education Loan online in India isn’t hard once you know the sequence, but doing it in the wrong order costs weeks you don’t have.

Here’s the sequence that actually works, plus the numbers most guides skip.

Start On The Vidya Lakshmi Portal, Not a Random Bank Branch

The government’s PM-Vidyalakshmi portal (pmvidyalaxmi.co.in) exists precisely to stop students from filling out ten different forms at ten different bank branches. It currently lists 86 education loan schemes from 38 banks, and lets you fill one Common Education Loan Application Form (CELAF) and send it to up to three lenders at once. Each bank evaluates it independently and responds through your dashboard — you compare offers side by side instead of chasing branch managers.

You can still apply directly through a bank’s own app (SBI YONO, HDFC’s portal, or an NBFC like Credila or Avanse), and for study-abroad loans that’s often faster. But if you’re not sure which lender fits your profile, the portal is the better starting point because it also flags which subsidy schemes you qualify for — more on that below.

The Standard Step-By-Step Process on the Portal

Register on The Portal

with your mobile number, email, and Aadhaar. You’ll set up a student login and can save your progress partway.

Fill The CELAF  

Complete the Common Education Loan Application Form — personal and academic bio-data, course and institution details, total cost of education, and collateral info if applicable. One form covers every bank you apply to. 

Search and Shortlist Schemes. 

The portal shows which banks match your course, institute ranking, and loan amount, along with their listed interest rates.

Apply to up to 3 banks

Submit the same CELAF to up to three participating banks simultaneously. Each bank evaluates independently and responds through the portal.

Upload documents 

KYC, admission letter, fee structure/cost estimate, income proof, academic records, and collateral documents (if the loan amount requires security) go up here. Track status in real time — sanctioned, under review, or query raised.

Respond to Bank Queries 

Follow-up document requests, or interview calls show up directly on the dashboard if they ask for additional paperwork. Approval typically runs 15–30 working days depending on profile and paperwork. 

Sanction and Disbursement 

Loans are usually released in tranches per academic year — the first installment around admission time, the rest against fee receipts and progress certificates. Most banks send the amount as a demand draft or transfer straight to the institute, not to you.

Public sector banks typically take 15–25 days to sanction; NBFCs like Credila can do it in 7–14 days, which matters if your visa or admission deadline is tight.

Important Documents You Must Have For Education Loan

  • Admission letter with fee structure, 
  • 10th/12th mark sheets and entrance scorecard (JEE, NEET, CAT, GRE, whatever applies), 
  • Aadhaar and PAN, 
  • Co-applicant’s income proof (last two years’ ITR and Form 16, or salary slips), 
  • Last six months’ bank statements, 
  • Passport-size photos, 
  • Collateral documents if your loan amount needs security. 

Missing or blurry documents are the single biggest reason applications sit in “query raised” status for weeks.

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How Much You Have To Repay in Education Loan Online

Headline rates change with every RBI repo revision, so treat these as indicative starting points as of mid-2026, not fixed numbers — confirm the current rate directly with the lender before you sign anything.

LenderIndicative rate (p.a.)Notes
SBI Scholar Loan (IIT/IIM/ISB/select institutes)6.90% – 7.65%Lowest rates available, but restricted to a specific institute list
SBI Global Ed-Vantage (study abroad)From ~9.15%Flat ₹10,000 processing fee, needs 15% margin money above ₹4 lakh
PNB8.55% – 11.95%Up to ₹20 lakh without collateral for eligible courses
Canara Bank9.25% – 11.95%Strong presence in South India
HDFC Bank9.50% – 13.50%Faster processing than most PSU banks
Axis Bank9.50% – 13.50%Similar positioning to HDFC
ICICI Bank10.50% – 13.50%Higher end of private-bank rates
HDFC Credila (NBFC)~9.75% secured / ~10.25%+ unsecured100% financing possible, sanction in days, but processing fee is 1–1.25% + GST
Avanse / Propelld (NBFC)~10% – 13.5%Collateral-free options up to ₹60–75 lakh, merit-based pricing

The gap between a PSU bank’s lowest rate and an NBFC’s unsecured rate can run 3–4 percentage points. On a ₹15 lakh loan over 10 years, that difference alone adds up to several lakh rupees in extra interest — it’s worth the extra week of paperwork to get a PSU sanction if your timeline allows it.

The Subsidy Most Students Never Check For

Two separate government schemes can cut your effective rate, and they’re easy to confuse:

PM-Vidyalakshmi interest subvention (launched November 2024) gives a 3% interest subvention on loans up to ₹10 lakh, during the study period and moratorium, if your family income is up to ₹8 lakh a year. It only applies if you’re admitted to a Quality Higher Education Institution — over 860 of them qualify, including all IITs, NITs, and IIMs, plus state institutions ranked 101–200 in the NIRF list. There’s also a 75% government credit guarantee on loans up to ₹7.5 lakh, which is why some banks will sanction you without asking for collateral or a guarantor.

Central Sector Interest Subsidy (CSIS) is the older scheme — it covers the full interest during moratorium, but only for families earning up to ₹4.5 lakh a year and only at a separate, narrower list of premier institutions. You can’t claim both on the same loan, so check which one your institute and income bracket actually qualify for before assuming you get nothing.

Apply for whichever subvention you’re eligible for through the same portal — it isn’t automatic.

What Happens Once You Start Your Repayment

Once repayment starts, the interest you pay (not the principal) is fully deductible under Section 80E of the Income Tax Act — no upper limit on the amount. The deduction runs for 8 years from when you start repaying, or until the interest is fully paid off, whichever comes first. 

It applies to loans taken for your own, your spouse’s, or your children’s higher education, but only from a bank or a notified financial institution — a loan from a relative doesn’t qualify.

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How You Can Save Real Money in Education Loan

  • Girl students get an automatic 0.5% rate concession at most public sector banks — ask for it explicitly if it isn’t applied.
  • Pay simple interest during the moratorium if you can manage it, even partially. Left unpaid, it often compounds once repayment begins, and on a ₹10 lakh loan that gap can run into a couple of lakh rupees by the time you graduate.
  • Compare processing fees, not just the headline rate. SBI charges a flat ₹10,000; NBFCs typically charge 1–1.75% of the loan plus GST, which is a meaningful amount on a ₹50 lakh loan.
  • Check margin money requirements. PSU banks generally need you to fund 15% of the cost yourself for loans above ₹4 lakh (domestic) or above a certain threshold for study abroad; several NBFCs offer 100% financing instead.
  • Ask about prepayment penalties before signing with an NBFC — some charge 1–3% if you close the loan early, which matters if your income grows faster than expected.

What If Your Study Loan Application Gets Stuck?

Most delays trace back to one of four things: 

Documents uploaded in the wrong format or half-legible, applying to a bank whose collateral rules don’t match the loan amount requested, assuming you qualify for a subsidy without checking the institute list first, and accepting the first offer instead of comparing at least two or three sanctioned terms side by side.

Register on the Vidya Lakshmi portal, shortlist one PSU bank and one NBFC so you have both a low-rate option and a fast-sanction backup, check which subsidy scheme your institute and income actually qualify for, and get your documents scanned before you start the form — not after a bank asks for them.

Conclusion

Understanding How to Apply for an Education Loan Online lets you avoid mistakes, get your documents ready at time, and not get your application stuck. If you want to pursue your education but can’t afford it, the study loan will help you achieve your dreams. Remember to check the bank’s interest and calculate the cost you have to pay later.

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