Telangana: Backward classes students want loan waiver

Hyderabad: Backward classes and student organisations are demanding the state government waive education loans of students along the lines of crop loan waiver scheme for farmers to enable them appear for the State Bank of India's clerks recruitment exam.

The SBI has barred loan and credit card defaulters from appearing for the exams. It recently issued notification to fill 17,140 clerk posts barring candidates with a record of defaults in repayment of loans or credit card dues and candidates with an adverse report from a credit information company. These norms triggered protests from BCs, who constitute a majority in availing bank loans to pursue higher studies.

While SCs and STs are getting total reimbursement of tuition fees in the state, this is not the case with BCs, for whom the benefit is extended only if they secure ranks below 10,000 in entrance examinations. This forces a majority of BC students to depend on education loans.

However, most of the candidates are unable to repay the loans for various reasons.  Banks in TS have extended total loans worth Rs 3,50,884 crore, of which education loans are a mere one per cent at Rs 3,239 crore.

The organisations are angry at the SBI resorting to such a harsh step to recover just one per cent of its total loan portfolio, while overlooking other sectors, which have huge NPAs.

“Students can repay loans only if they get jobs. If they are barred from appearing for job exams, how can they get jobs? The banks have several options to recover loans. They can instead impose a condition that the loans will be recovered from the salaries of selected candidates. Barring them from job exams is totally unfair and unconstitutional. We will approach the courts against this norm besides taking up the agitation programmes. If this is allowed now, this may soon be extended to other exams,” said R. Krishnaiah, BC Welfare Association leader.

The Association has convened a meeting with 120 backward castes, which demanded TS government to waive off education loans.

“We will soon meet Prime Minister and demand action against SBI for introducing such unfair norms. At the most, banks extend education loans up to Rs 5 lakh for each student with much difficulty. And to recover such a small amount, they are now resorting to unfair means of barring students from writing exams,” said J. Kalyan, president, Telangana Students and Unemployed JAC.