The Educational Loanees Welfare Association will organise a dharna in front of State Bank of Travancore, the lead bank of the district, here on Friday.
The programme is intended to register the loanees’ protest against various banks that are allegedly adopting unfair means to recover education loans.
A march will be taken out from Mullakkal to the bank office, near Kallupalam, at 10 a.m. It will be inaugurated by Alappuzha district panchayat president G. Venugopal. The dharna will be inaugurated by P.C. George, MLA.
The association’s chief coordinator Jose Francis said two parents had committed suicide recently in the district, not being to bear the harassment meted out by banks from where their children had taken education loans. He accused bank officials of threatening loanees and their family members. He alleged that while many banks were resorting to unfair means of recovery with least regard to rules on recovery of education loans, the revenue officials were facilitating the illegal activity.
Though the government had allocated funds for waiving the interest and penal interest on education loans, there were many cases of banks failing to take account of it. There had been instances of strangers, in the name of bank of officials, reaching homes of loanees and threatening women and children.
The district’s coastal areas, inhabited mostly by labourers and fisherfolk, had a number of families facing threat from banks in connection with loan defaults. More cases of suicide might occur if the government failed to intervene, he said.
