A massive meeting against revenue recovery proceedings in cases of education loan default will be held in Thiruvananthapuram before Onam.
This was decided at a convention of education loanees organised under the aegis of the Indian Nurses Parents Association (INPA) here on Saturday.
Prominent people from the social, political, and cultural and other fields will take part in the meeting.
The meeting would be the culmination of sustained efforts lasting a month in which local anti-revenue recovery units would be formed with participation of other loanees, local people, friends, and neighbours.
A district-level committee would also be formed.
The convention, attended by a large number of education loanees and their parents, was inaugurated by SUCI State committee member S. Rajeevan.
In his address, Mr. Rajeevan said education loans were the result of a nexus between commercial interests and the authorities. The loans were only a way of ensuring profit for those commercialising education, and were not given with people’s interests at heart, he said.
He quoted S. Balram who chaired the expert committee constituted by the State government to study the problems of nurses employed by private hospitals as saying that loans should be repaid only when one got a job and adequate pay. There was no need to take another loan to repay the education loan. If a job and pay commensurate to the educational qualification could not be paid, then it was the government which was bound the pay the educational loan, he said.
The former Supreme Court judge V.R. Krishna Iyer had said on the issue of farmer suicides in Wayanad that suicides were not a solution. It was imperative to wage a dignified struggle. Hence, people should come together to protest when revenue recovery proceedings were initiated against them or notices sent for default on education loans. No government could ignore what the people wanted, he said.
Mini S., State secretary of the INPA, said the association was demanding the government should take over education loans completely as many students did not earn enough to repay the loans.
Prominent persons from social, political and cultural fields to take part in
people’s meet.
