Nurses crushed under the weight of loans

KOZHIKODE: Eyeing a glittering nursing career abroad, Shyam S S gained  admission to the BSc Nursing course at a self-financing college in Salem in 2003.  Hailing from a middle class family in Thiruvananthapuram, he managed the fee by taking an educational loan of Rs 4 lakh. He passed with good marks enough to get a job but had to spend around Rs 1.5 lakh further for preparing and attending eligibility tests for working abroad. By that time, job prospects of BSc Nursing graduates declined and demand was for MSc Nursing students who were getting more than Rs 25,000 even in Kerala. The same bank provided another loan of Rs 3 lakh to Shyam for PG course as well. Years passed, interest multiplied, the loan debt crossed Rs 10 lakh but no job and hence no repayment.Shyam  represents more than 80 percent of the  students of the state who opted for educational loans to pursue higher education within the state, in the country and abroad since 2001. Thanks to the mushrooming of self-financing colleges, weak job market, spate of admissions to professional courses and easy-to-access loan schemes, another financial bubble looms large in the form of educational loan debts.According to the statistics of the State Level Bankers Committee (SLBC), Kerala, the total number of educational loan NPAs (Non-Productive Assets) of the state has increased by around 750 percent over the last seven years.The amount of loans under NPA registered a growth of 1453 percent. At the end of 2005-06 fiscal, the number of NPAs was 2016 and the amount was around Rs 19.39 crore. As of September 2011, the number of NPAs stands at 15,137 with a whopping amount of Rs 281.64 crore. This includes NPA positions of State Bank group, nationalised banks, public sector banks, private sector banks and co-operatives. The number of loans outstanding is 3,33,316 and the outstanding loan amount is around Rs 6729.25 crore. On an average, the outstanding debt amount of each student loanee comes around Rs 2.02 lakh. ‘’It’s a very precarious situation. Among the students who availed of educational loans for higher education since 2001, only 20 percent were able to find an appropriate job. Others are struggling hard to make both ends meet.  Without showing any mercy, banks have been harassing the defaulters.   This financial uncertainty is the major reason for the recent uprising by nursing students in the state. It has become a grave social problem. The state government, economists and politicians should rise to the occasion and devise a way to tackle the crisis at the earliest,’’ said Educational Loan Holders Association state working president M K Radhakrishnan, based in Perumbavoor.  Says K K George, economist and chairman of the Centre for Socio-economic and Environmental Studies (CSES): “The situation is going so bad that the state would soon witness a situation very similar to farmer suicides.’’