AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa on Thursday asked the government to halt proceedings against defaulters in co-operative housing banks.
In a statement, she said the borrowers were mainly poor farmers and weavers, who had struggled to build houses by obtaining loan from co-operative housing banks, repaying interest apart from the principal amount. According to reports, they were being harassed as they were unable to pay their EMIs. It was ironical that the government, which had announced a mega housing scheme for the poor, was threatening and evicting them from their houses by force, she said. “If this government has a truly humanitarian outlook, it would have offered to collect only the principal from the borrowers and relieve them from mortgage.”