Kerala: Anti-Sarfaasi Jan Andolan held a mass sit-in in front of the Scheduled Castes Directorate demanding loan waiver for Dalit-tribal communities. Poet Kuripuzha Sreekumar inaugurated the strike. He said that people in debt are staging this protest to avoid suicide.
When the child who went to school returns in the evening, he is homeless. The bank people took away the house. The child is sitting there screaming. The authorities should see this. This debt problem should be resolved. Kuripuzha Sreekumar said that this is a struggle to save the children of the country from committing suicide, in which a detailed petition was submitted to the Director of Scheduled Castes to take steps to waive the entire debt of Dalit tribals and not confiscate their beds. Screening committees should be formed in all villages to assess the real reasons for loan defaults and find solutions.
The petitioner demanded the director to form a permanent debt relief commission for debt settlement. There was also a demand to create an alternative credit system by controlling the microfinance companies which have become killers of housewives in rural areas.
The program was presided over by Advocate P.A.Pooran. VC Jenny, Maglin Philomena, Ajith Pachnathan, P.J. Manuel, Prem Babu and others spoke.
